The Sun Won't Rise Tomorrow
by Inuness
Summary: An alternate and extension to the ending of The Ultimate Enemy. What if Clockwork hadn't saved Danny's friends and family? What if the evil inside of Danny wasn't created from science, but was inside Danny the whole time? Check Kyasuri on DA for story pic
1. Chapter 1

Danny looked up in horror as the Nasty Burger's explosion reached towards the sky in a dazzling array of colors. That's it. He had been too late, no second chances. He had been the hero, defeated the bad guy (even though the bad guy was far stronger) but had failed to get to his friends and family in time. As the smoke that was as black as his oncoming grief rose and started to part, he continued to sit from the spot where he had been hurled and stared at where all the people he loved most in life had been just a few minutes ago. How could this have happened? Didn't he prove that he wasn't bad? Shouldn't someone help? A hero? No, he was the hero and he wasn't even strong enough to save himself.

As all these thoughts passed through his mind, his vision had begun to blur. Danny touched his head and found that he was bleeding heavily. He quickly struggled to his feet, but stumbled a bit, his vision starting to get worse. "Mo-" he stopped and cleared his throat for it had suddenly become very dry. "Mom… Dad, Jazz, Sam and Tucker… you're," Danny mumbled, starting to make his way for the wreckage, "you're alright, please come out… I saved you, you can... yo-." Daniel fell to the ground and clutched a patch of dirt beside him, his eyes watering slightly. "You cant be…" he whispered as he finally lost consciousness, feet away from where his friends and family lay, Dead.

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It had been three years to this day that young Daniel's life had been turned upside down (as if gaining ghost powers hadn't already done so). And it had been two years and ten months to this day as well that Vlad Masters had taken Danny into his home to watch over. On this very day, Danny was found where he was always found, in his room. Even though the tragic accident had been years ago, he still found it hard to do anything but reflect on what had happened that day and what he should have done to stop those events. Although this day was a little special, being the fact that it was the anniversary of his friends and family's death.

"Three years, though it still feels like yesterday," Danny started to write in his journal (he had been keeping since the accident) when a soft rap came from the door. He quickly closed the journal, turned it intangible and stuck it in the wall behind him before he turned away from the door and mumbled, "You can walk through the door, why do you even bother on knocking…"

"You know that would be rude Daniel," a familiar, but weather worn voice came from behind the door as it started to open. Danny sighed, "It's your house, you can do whatever you please…"

"Well yes, but it would still be rude in my book," Vlad Masters said as he stood in the bedroom's doorway. "I just stopped by to see how you were doing…"

"Peachy…….."

"… You didn't come down to dinner… would you like me to bring the leftovers u-" Vlad started but was interrupted, "No, I just didn't feel like eating… I think I'm sick, that's all." Vlad paused before he walked over to the end of Danny's bed and sat down. "You know… if ever you need to talk… I have two ears that would gladly listen… …" Vlad paused, deciding it wise to change the subject. "Your 18th birthday is coming up soon… I'm sure you're excited." No answer. Vlad paused again, unsure if it would be a good idea to try and continue. After a moment or so, he decided just to give Danny his space and stood to leave. "Well I should let you rest if you're sick… just make sure to get something to eat once you feel better… you know where my bedroom is if there are any complications… Good Night Daniel," Vlad's closing statements to a loosing jury were as he slipped back out the doorway and closed the door silently behind himself.

Danny turned back around after a few minutes to check that Vlad was gone before reaching a hand through the wall behind him to take the journal out once more to continue writing down his entry.

To be honest, Danny had been offered many places to live after the accident. Tucker's parents, Lanzer's mother (who her son had been living with at the time), some distant relatives, and even Sam's parents, but he had turned them all down, not wanting to bother them in their grief or to be bothered with his.

After a month, he had started to wonder where he was going to live, if he even deserved to live at all, when Vlad Masters made his way into town. Word had finally spread up to Wisconsin about the large and mysterious explosion in Amity Park, and Vlad was of course smart enough to know who this event would be tied to. Before then, Danny had been living in the park, as far away as possible from his house. It was still cold, though spring was starting to show signs of being near, and temperatures easily reached to the low teens at night. It was on this night, just 2 years and ten months ago that Vlad found Danny, shivering, on a park bench that was still halfway covered in snow.

"Why did I have a feeling I'd find you here my boy…," Vlad said softly as he walked up beside Danny. He could see that young Daniel had made the decision to go without a coat this evening and that he was shivering from what looked to be something more than the bitter temperatures outside. The middle-aged man unrolled a blanket he had put under his arm for safe keeping and draped it over Danny. "I'm getting too old for this," Vlad sighed as he put his hands under Danny's shoulders and knees. The young boy's shivers started to grow less as he opened an eye and looked up at Vlad. "You- no…," Danny mumbled before falling back asleep. Vlad sighed as he picked Danny up and walked him back to his car where a driver sat, waiting patiently with the heat blasting.

Danny turned his head away from his journal and sighed. Why this memory suddenly appeared in his head, he had no idea. Shaking off the recollection, he set his attention back to his journal. Flipping through the many pages that had been his life for the past three years, it could be seen where his mood swings were. Some pages were very neat and tidy, whereas others seemed to not follow the printed lines and were almost illegible. It was on one of these pages he stopped to read, just to get back in the mood of writing in the journal.

Jul 14

It's gotten worse… I black out for days on end now… I don't know where I've been or what I've been doing. I'd like to be naïve and say that I have just been sleeping for awhile, but I know better. I've seen him. It just….. I remember what Clockwork told me…what he showed me, and what future Vlad had told me as well… I wasn't supposed to be evil until I was separated into my human and ghost selves…. But that event was supposed to take place soon after I came to live with Vlad. Well it didn't happen, I made sure of that… but if I'm still here, in this reality, then I do go Evil somehow… and I'm starting to think… no I know…… that I don't need Vlad's ghost side to help me this time…

Danny blinked and squinted for from there on, all that was in the entry was small illegible scribbles and blots from the pen he was writing with. He sighed and flipped all the way to his new entry, but could not bring himself to finish even the sentence he had started. Wondering if he actually had come down with a cold, Danny put the journal back inside the wall and slipped down on his bed. Though it had gotten to the point where young Daniel was too scared each night to sleep, he decided to try anyway in the hopes that he would in fact wake up the next day in full control.


	2. Chapter 2

Ironically, the day was one of those days you would dream about in the depths of winter. The month was well into the spring season, there was barely a cloud in the sky and even birds were seen, flying around in their mirth.

Danny sighed slightly as he climbed his way out of Vlad's limo. He walked to the trunk and started to unpack all his worldly possessions that he had decided to take with him. After he had finished, he sighed and looked up at Vlad's mansion. Why was he here? He should have stayed back in Amity Park. While staring, Daniel felt a hand rest on his shoulder. He turned to see Vlad Masters, standing next to him with a small smile on his face. He shouldn't have come. Danny remembered what clockwork had shown him and it was all playing out as Dan Phantom had wanted it to. Turning away from Vlad, he took out a picture he had of his friends and family and stood rooted to the ground, being left anew in his misery and grief.

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Vlad made his way to his bedroom. He had tried to make emotional contact, like he had every day since young Daniel had arrived in his home, but still to no avail. Walking into his room, he promptly made his way for his personal bathroom to begin the process of getting ready for bed.

This was, after all, what he had wanted from the very beginning. Jack out of the way, Danny living with him as if he were the son he had longed for so many years, but it was not as he had envisioned. The circumstances had been different. No one was dead in the dreams of his pursuit for a family, or for that matter a family life at all. And yet here was Danny, just a few bedrooms down the hall, family-less and friendless. It tore Vlad apart more than he would really care to admit, but he almost couldn't stand to see the person he had begun to love like a son, hurt so badly.

A few months after Danny's arrival, Vlad began to notice a change in Daniel's behavior. He became moody on top of the constant depression he seemed to be living in. It had finally gotten to the point where Vlad couldn't stand it anymore and offered a proposition to the young ghost child.

"I have this new invention; it can separate any ghost from anything…" Vlad said, looking up from the paper to see if Danny would have a reaction at all. He paused before continuing, "I was thinking………….. you don't seem too well… I can-" he stopped for Danny had gotten up abruptly. "No, absolutely not. I won't let you do anything to me," Danny said as he turned for the door, remembering what future Vlad had told him. "I'll never let you separate my ghost self from my human self," Danny thought to himself as he walked out of the library and up to his room.

Vlad, being slightly stunned that Danny had known exactly what he had intended to do, sighed and went back to his paper. "Another time and another place. Hopefully it will not come to that…" Vlad thought, turning the paper to the weather to find that the forecast for the entire week was cloudy with a strong chance of thunderstorms.

It was now close to eleven as Vlad rolled over on his side, not having gotten a wink of sleep. He had tried other ways of getting Danny to become more social again, to try and forget the past. Vlad had signed the teen up for many types of sports, social activities, anything, but nothing seemed to work. Danny would always seclude himself from the rest of the group and would refuse to talk to anyone.

The half-ghost sighed as he sat up and swung his feet over the side of the bed. He wasn't going to get to sleep anytime soon so he figured a nice glass of water would keep him company while he tried. As he made his way for the bathroom again, he heard a disturbance down the hall. Pausing for only a moment, he turned his direction for the door and peered out. All seemed as it should at this time of night. Vlad continued to stand in the doorway for a few more minutes before turning back for the bathroom, "All in my head, it is, after all, eleven o'clock in the evening," he assured himself as he turned on the bathroom light and filled a glass with water.

He walked back to his bed and set the glass down on his bedside table when the same noise was yet again heard down the hall. Now being assured that it wasn't all in his head, Vlad draped a robe (of course over his PJs) over himself and walked out for Danny's room. He knew not to be naïve either, if it was coming from Danny's room, there had to be a problem.

Vlad stopped in front of the teenager's room and hesitated before knocking lightly. "Daniel… is everything all right?" he asked as he opened the door and looked around. His eyes having already adjusted from the bathroom light, he saw Danny was not in his bed. The older man sighed. "I really am getting too old for this."

He paused quickly, feeling a presence behind him. "You know how I feel about you being up this late at night Dani-," he stopped as his shadow became visible against a new burst of red light.

The presence came closer and whispered in Vlad's ear. "Yes… I know."


	3. Chapter 3

He didn't like it, not at all. It had been almost a year since Danny's arrival to the prior home of the Wisconsin Dairy King, but it had already felt like a lifetime. Everything he did or thought here took him farther away from the memories of his friends and family. He grieved less, moped less, and the mental abuse became few and far between. He didn't like it at all. Was he starting to get used to all of this? Had he finally grown accustomed to the idea that he was never going to see his friends and family again? Was he moving on? Of course not, he was half ghost and ghosts never got over anything. But still, he just wanted to hurt, the only way he knew to make up for his loved ones deaths.

While these new thoughts and ideas started running through Danny's mind, he stopped and looked around at his surroundings. He had been walking through the mansion, but had not been paying attention to where he was going and now found himself in a place he had never seen before.

"This place grows larger every second doesn't it…" he mumbled to himself as he walked over and opened a door to the side of the hall.

Inside he found an old bedroom layered in what looked to be a couple of inches of dust. "Yikes, I guess the maid hasn't found the new addition to the house either…," he thought as he stepped inside and looked around. There really seemed to be nothing special about this room. It honestly looked exactly like one of the many "guest bedrooms" that littered the mansions hallways, but something was telling Danny to stay there for a little while longer.

"Hard isn't it? Knowing you miss your loved ones, but no longer being able to express the emotions…" came a familiar but new voice. Danny looked around the room, but found no one; his ghost sense not triggering either. "Who… Who are you… where are you," Danny stammered slightly, still darting his eyes left to right just in case he had missed something in the room.

Nothing but a mirror with a thin layer of dust lay in front of him. He stared at his frightened appearance for a second before taking a deep breath to calm down and take hold of the situation. "Listen if you've lost your way out of the mansion, I feel for you, but you're going to have to find the way out that doesn't involve screwing with me"

"Oh but Danny, you know where I am. I've been watching you for awhile now, it's almost as if we were best friends," said the voice with an almost mocking tone. Danny turned quickly again only to see the bed and nothing else. "Fine, if we're such great friends then you wouldn't mind showing yourself to me," Daniel yelled out to the empty room.

Silence followed until the voice calmly replied, "Alright, look behind you." Danny's heart raced as he closed his eyes and turned around slowly. Whatever he saw, he was sure it would be bad.

Maybe this is what he needed, to play the superhero thing again. Beat up a ghost, throw him back into the ghost zone, that's how all the manly men conquered their grief.

Deciding he should look before the new apparition took a sucker punch to him, Danny took a deep breath and opened his eyes slowly.

Nothing. Nada. Zilch. In front of Danny stood the old mirror and nothing else.

Sighing with what could almost be considered relief, he started to turn away when his reflection caught his attention. Instead of his goofy relieved expression came the reflection of something else. It was him, but wasn't at the same time. He was wearing the same clothes, was standing in the same position, but had two key differences. He was giving a broad smirk in the reflection, and had red eyes.

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Some things can be considered annoying. And usually found on that oh-so long of a list were the two things Danny found himself with the next morning. Birds had awakened him from sleep with their incessant chirping, and a few moments later he had found that he was in fact not in his bed, but in the middle of the kitchen floor. Annoying!

Danny slowly sat up, rubbing his head. Maybe he should have gone downstairs to dinner the night before, maybe then he wouldn't have found himself in the kitchen. (The kitchen floor hurts to sleep on by the way) But since he was there, he figured it wouldn't hurt to eat the leftovers Vlad had promised him the night before. Daniel stood, stretched and walked over to the refrigerator.

Yawning, he opened the 13 foot, glorious, stainless-steel mammoth of a 200volt fridge and dug around for the plate. "Geeze, if Tuck was still alive I'm sure he wouldn't sleep until he had worked for enough money to buy one of these things," Danny thought to himself as he closed the fridge after finding the leftovers.

Tuck. It had been awhile, well three years and a day to this date. It was sometimes hard to imagine that his best friend of many years was gone. Every now and then he'd turn to the side or look around for Tuck to tell him something funny he had heard, or to get something off of his chest that had been bothering him. But each time he turned to talk to Tucker, his smile would flatten in the memory that his friend wasn't there and wasn't coming back.

It's not like he hadn't thought of the idea that they might have ended up in the ghost zone. A month or so after he had come to live with Vlad, he had gone through the ghost portal to look for anyone who might have been there. For a few months to come he would go to the ghost zone around 4 days a week and search, but to no avail. It finally hit him that all the people he knew were too strong of people to not move on, something he probably would never be able to do.

Tucker, though he would sometimes act otherwise, was definitely a strong enough person to move on; he'd always surprise Danny in one way or another. One memory he could still clearly remember was when his two friends had formed rallies against each other after the school had changed their menu for a week to Ultra Recyclo-Vegetarian. The half ghost remembered coming to school the next day to see the school grounds littered with extremists.

"All I'm saying is maybe you should compromise with her Tuck," Danny sighed as he closed his locker. Everything had been taken care of with the Lunch Lady and, believe it or not, the school day continued as 'normal'.

"Danny, there are only two things in life that matter. Girls and Meat. She disrespected the meat," Tucker said as he waved his hands melodramatically in the air.

"Well whatever, you'll have to get over it before tonight," Danny paused to sigh, "We'll be doing community service for weeks."

Tucker cringed at the thought of cleaning all of the Ultra Recyclo-Vegetarian 'garbage', "Yah you're right."

Danny sighed. What would his life be like if everyone was still alive? As he started to turn away from the refrigerator, he noticed something in his reflection on the fridge's surface. Turning back towards the door he leaned in for a closer look.

Crash. His plate hit the floor as he turned and ran for the nearest bathroom. Running in he stopped abruptly in front of the mirror and leaned in close. He did see correctly, his eyes were red.

"How… is that possible," Danny thought as he backed up from the mirror, "I'm not.." He stopped, having noticed something in the corner of the mirror. Moving his head towards the right he saw the end of what looked to be a foot. The color draining from his face, young Daniel turned slowly back towards the door and looked out.

There down the hallway was Vlad Masters, soaked in a pool of his own blood.


	4. Chapter 4

AN: Thanks for the reviews, I honestly do appreciate them, but please submit the reviews as reviews... and not as a conversation with your characters. Those are really hard to follow since I can't tell what's going on, Thanks! If you want to see pictures posted with the story chapters (and to preview whats next since I have more of the story updated on this site) go to my DA account http://kyasuri. .

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This was the third night; the third night he had awoken to find himself out of bed, but this was the farthest he had ever been from his room. 

"Sleep…. Walking… I have just developed a sudden strong behavior of sleep walking……. ……………………… … that's it," Danny tried to reassure himself as he walked upstairs for his room.

Three days ago he had seen something in the dust covered mirror of an abandoned guest room that still haunted him. The funny thing was a second after he had seen those horrible red eyes, they were gone. He was just imagining things, that's all. The grief had become anew and he had entered into the hallucinating state of depression.

Since the story about the guest room, when told could be considered very irrational, he had decided not to tell Vlad in fear of being put into a mental institution or worse, one of those mandatory participation social events like sports or something. It was nothing to fear though, just a hallucination. But then why was he terrified to go to bed every night?

Daniel yawned as he came to the top of the stairs and rounded the corner. Whatever it was, he would just be happy to get some rest, it almost seemed like he was more tired now than when he went to bed! As he made his way for his bedroom he looked up and stopped. There in his way to his bedroom was Vlad. Danny yawned again, "What, you were sleep w-"

His sentence was cut short by a sharp blast to his stomach, to which he now found himself eating carpet as he slid a few yards away from the older half-ghost.

"Don't think you can play games with me! Release him now!" Masters yelled as he aimed a hand at Daniel, his hand glowing in warning.

"WHAT THE HELL! WHAT WAS THAT FOR!?" Danny said as he sat up and rubbed his stomach gingerly. Vlad surveyed the young half-ghost for a while before putting his hand down, "Daniel I-"

"YOU WHAT? YOU'RE INSANE?" Danny said as he shot to his feet and limped towards his room. Any time of the day he'd willingly fight Vlad into a bloody pulp, but screw it, he was tired. Upon entering his room, Daniel slammed the door behind him to convey the message of anger towards Masters.

Vlad turned away with a sigh. "Forgive me Daniel," he mumbled outloud.

"I have feared that this would happen. He lost his family at too soon an age and now is reacting subconsciously in the only way a ghost knows how…" Vlad thought as he made his way downstairs for something to eat. He couldn't have Danny wandering the halls in the condition he was in, so he had decided to stay up and monitor young Daniel's movements. "This might be a very long week"

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A surprised shock was heard down the hall as Danny quickly stumbled out of the bathroom and to the older half-ghost who was submerged elbow-high in his own blood. He didn't, he couldn't have hurt Vlad.

And yet there Masters lay.

Danny came to a stop beside the old half-ghost and kneeled down. "Vlad, Vlad are you alright?" A long silence followed until movement from Masters indicated that he was alive and trying to convey something to Daniel.

"Dan-," Vlad started but stopped as he tried to open his eyes.

"VLAD! Oh God are you alright? W-what happened…. Did you see anything, oh god, should I call an ambulance??" Danny sputtered out loud.

Vlad looked up to Danny with a questioning look. "Your eyes…"

"No, it's me. I- I should call an ambulance," Danny said as he struggled to his feet, but a weak arm pulled him back down.

"No don't, they won't get here in time. Listen, Daniel, I need… need to tell you … something," Masters said as he started wheezing. Danny looked on at the face of a once proud man who was now completely covered in dried blood.

"You, need to… go down to my lab, I started working… on something… for you… it's not ready… but it's clear now that… you need it," Vlad said as he laid his head to the side and closed his eyes. Danny's panic flared up again.

"Vlad? VLAD?"

"Please Daniel, not so loud…"

Danny sighed in relief, but the feeling did not stay for long as a horrible idea hit his head. He was the one responsible for this. If Vlad died, HE would have killed him!

"Vlad… did I-," Danny started but was cut off by Vlad's upheld hand, indicating silence.

"I… … do not blame… you," Vlad said as he turned slowly and looked up into Danny's now blue eyes. "Remember that… I have always… loved you like a son," Vlad said as he gave a weak smile and closed his eyes.

"Vlad…. Vlad…," Danny inquired but heard nothing. He sat there patiently for a few minutes, praying that Masters was just resting. It finally became apparent that the older half-ghost was doing more than that, though, as Danny shot to his feet and ran for the nearest phone. He had to call someone, Vlad was dying and it was entirely his fault!!!

Grabbing a wireless phone, he picked the receiver up and tried to steady his shaking hand to dial the numbers. A dial-tone then, "This is 911, do you need the police or the fire department?"

"I need an ambulance! My father is dying!!!!," Danny blurted into the phone. Father. Did he just call Vlad his father?

"One moment please, I need to connect you," The voice on the other end said as the call was connected to the proper department. "911-"

"AMBULANCE! I NEED AN AMBULANCE!" Danny shouted, how could they be so slow when someone was DYING? "Ok, hold on kid, what's your address…"

Danny started to disclose every bit of information the man asked for as he walked back to where Vlad lay. "Alright, we will be there as soon as we can. Unfortunately your house is pretty far out there, but we will get to you as soon as possible…," The voice on the other end said, but they received no response for Danny had dropped the phone in shock.

In the middle of the floor there was a large soak-stained blood patch on the carpet, but nothing else. Where was Vlad?

"Kid hello?"

"Where… where is he, where is…," Danny said as he fell to his knees.

"Kid?" came the voice but was cut off as Danny pressed 'end' the phone. Where the hell was Vlad? In the second he had run to get the phone, had he passed out and buried the body?

Danny swayed slightly as his vision blurred and mind fogged up. What a horrible day, what an absolutely horrible day. He would give anything to be back in his bed, or even on the floor of the kitchen complaining about the birds being too loud!

His family. Someone had died again, and it was all because of him. Was he really that evil? But how could this have happened? After the accident he had done nothing but dedicate himself to helping others, even if they shunned him completely for being the way he was.

Daniel stared off as his subconscious continued to wander. He started seeing flashes of him and his friends, playing video games, hanging out at the Nasty Burger. What had he done to deserve any of this? Danny continued to digress.

"What is this, April fool's day?" Danny commented as he laughed along with Tucker. Some beauty pageant that Sam claimed to be 'morally oppressive to women everywhere' had come to their school and they had found she had entered that very pageant.

"Yah you hate this contest!" Tucker said as he pointed at an obviously ticked off Sam.

"I'm not doing this to win, I'm doing this to make a statement," Sam stated as she pulled Tucker's beret over his head and walked away. Danny and Tucker exchanged a look before laughing again.

"A statement about what? How she can turn the sacredness of the beauty pageant into a Goth freak show?" Tucker said as he readjusted his beret.

"Ah you know what she's going to do, she's probably going to throw every curve she has at Ms. Mattingly…," Danny said with a sigh. It was true; Sam joined this pageant to make a statement and wouldn't relent until she had successfully given Dora Mattingly a heart attack.

But that was the way of Sam. Being the over-activist she was, she would stand up for anything she found morally oppressing. Danny really admired that, since he often lost the strength to stand up for something when times got really bad, but it was during these times that he knew Sam was close by to cheer him on. It was always those small boosts that helped him continue with whatever he was doing.

Something passed across Danny's vision, causing him to awaken from his day dream. What was that? Another something came towards him, but instead of passing him by it stopped and kneeled beside him. Muffled noises came to his ears as a clear ringing sound started and increased in volume. The magnitude of the ring became more intense until what felt like a bubble popped inside his ear and he could discern the noises as words. "-seems to be in an unconscious state," said the now clearly defined shadow of a man.

"He probably passed out, take him to the ambulance," said a voice outside of Danny's vision. Daniel started to struggle to an upright position, but the man in front of him coaxed him down.

"Hold on, I've gotcha," The guy said as he picked Danny up and carried him down the stairs towards the main entrance.

"Wait…………. Vlad," Danny mumbled as he weakly struggled to get free.

"Calm down, we're looking for him," The man said as he stepped outside and laid Danny onto a stretcher. It was surprisingly cold outside, even though the day had reached its afternoon peak. Winter was coming. Danny shivered and looked up into the smile the paramedic wore.

"Go to sleep, we've got it covered," were the last words Danny heard as he slipped back into a deep sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

Danny sat up quickly and looked around. The room he now found himself in was plainly decorated having beige colored walls with tan drapery that fell across a small window. Where the hell was he? Why was he here? He paused a moment to try and remember all the previous events that had brought him there. Vlad. Where was Vlad? Had they found him? Why was he here if Vlad was the one who needed help?

Daniel started to make his way out of bed when a door to the right opened and voices were heard. Before Danny could react in any sort of way, three men made their way into the room.

"Ah! Young Daniel! So good to see that you are finally awake! We got worried after the second day you hadn't awakened!" said the man in the middle. He was dressed in proper business attire and had a very well kempt gray mustache and short gray hair. He was noticeably taller than the two men beside him who also had small, neat mustaches of a gray hue.

Danny recognized them from somewhere but he couldn't place where. "Who are you…," said the young ghost-child, but his question was only met with a small chuckle from the shorter man on the right. "Oh I told you Nigel old-bean that he wouldn't remember us!"

"Hm hm, yes I suppose he wouldn't," said the other short man on the left who Danny assumed to be Nigel. What was so funny?

"Uhm..," began Danny but was cut off by the man in the middle, "We're your fa- … We're Vlad Master's lawyers."

Danny paused to think. Oh yes, he remembered seeing them once a year or so ago when they had come to discuss a large increase in spending on Master's part. "We've come to talk about the arrangements he made for after his… departure…," finished the man.

At these words Daniel felt an icy stab in the heart. So they… hadn't found him?

"He… they didn't," Danny mumbled but could not finish. The middle lawyer looked on at Daniel with pity but nothing more. "I'm sorry to say that no, he was not found. Since the blood lost on the carpet was too much for anyone to have survived, he was pronounced dead. I'm sorry Daniel he was a good man that we all admired."

Were they paid to say that?

"Well, now that we have gotten that out of the way, it's time to get down to business," Said the plump Nigel on the left. "Yes, I do believe we should. Well please make yourself comfortable, Daniel Fenton, there are a few things we must discuss, you know finances and the like," The lawyer to the right stated as they themselves pulled out three chairs from the side of the bed and sat down.

Was it just Danny or did this place seem like the least ideal place to talk about 'finances and the like'? He assumed that 'the like' meant where he was going to be staying. He was 18 now, legally an adult. They were probably going to tell him that since he was old enough, he was going to inherit everything, blah blah blah.

"Your... Uncle Vlad recently updated his will before his departure. In it he specifically stated that since you are 18, even though the state of Wisconsin deems you old enough to be considered an adult, he does not until you are of the age of college graduation. Therefore he has stated that you be sent to a special boarding school until that time comes,"

"What?" blurted Danny, not being able to find anything else to say in his shocked state. A boarding school? Were they serious?

"Yes, you have technically inherited his fortune, but you have no right to it until you are 22 and have graduated this private boarding school. You will have the money you will need to keep you there, but nothing more," said the lawyer in the middle. He had mistaken young Daniel's outburst for anger at the statement that he would not get the inheritance right then, but he couldn't have been more wrong.

"I don't CARE about that! Why am I going to a boarding school? Why can't I just live there in the mansion! You can hold the money from me forever if you like… but a boarding school?" Danny said now very dismayed and confused. He didn't want to go to a boarding school. That would mean having to deal with people again, and he defiantly didn't want that. And what about his current state? What if… he killed someone again?

"Forget it, I'm not going," Danny said while turning away from them. What did they know anyway? "I'm sorry but unfortunately that is not an option," The middle man stood and nodded his head slightly, "Your plane leaves tomorrow. Someone is being sent to escort you to the airport then to the boarding school. Your personal belongings have already been packed and forwarded to the school. We will meet again in 4 years, until then Daniel Fenton." The other men nodded to him as well then as a group they left the room.

------------------

The plane ride had been a long one. Fortunately a change of clothes had been taken from his wardrobe before it was moved to the boarding school. This made the plane ride a little more comfortable rather than having to wear the hospital apron.

As he had suspected, a 'yes man' had been sent for him from the three lawyers the day before to get him to the airport. The guy seemed nice and all, but Danny was sure their time together would have been a little bit more enjoyable if the guy hadn't said 'yes sir' every five seconds.

Young Daniel made his way through the pathway that had been set up to get out of the plane into the lobby for his arrival terminal. The plane had been relatively empty, mostly filled with business men who had a meeting or a concern in the area. Danny mumbled to himself "Well how the hell am I supposed to know who's here to pick me up if I've never met the lacky?"

He looked around the room then sighed again. Not one person remained at the terminal, maybe they all vacated because it was so dang cold. Deciding that no one was going to be around for awhile to get him, he began to sit down on one of the chairs but was startled to his feet by a shout from across the terminal.

"DANIEL!!!"

Looking around quickly he located a male around his age. He was shorter than Danny with dark brown hair and eyes. The boy quickly ran over to him, breathing deep while doing so. Once he reached his destination, he stopped and put his hands on his knees to breathe. "Hi… I'm Kl… aus… I'm so… rry I'm … late… MAN… running… sucks"

Danny stared at Klaus for a long moment before chuckling slightly. It was like a stored tension that had been building for a few years inside him left all at once and wouldn't allow him to stop laughing. Klaus looked up at Daniel for a moment before inquiring about the giggle fit, "Well it's true! I hate running. Anyway, I go to the school you're coming to so I've been sent to escort you and the like. So… Come on, the car is waiting outside."

"Uh, alright," Danny said as he awkwardly followed the boy. It may have been a weekend but the clothes Klaus wore what Daniel suspected to be the school uniform. He wore a gray sweater-vest with a white button up formal shirt underneath. The tie around his neck had diagonal stripes of gold and blue and there seemed to be a crest of some sort with the same colors embroidered on the upper left part of his swear-vest. He wore matching gray slacks to finish the 'beautiful' ensemble.

"Wonderful, I guess I'm going to be wearing that uniform," Danny thought to himself as he trudged alongside Klaus. They made their way to baggage claim then out the exit since Danny's clothes had already made the trip before him.

"Ah, right over there is the car," Klaus said as he came to a stop and pointed. "Where? I don't see a car, what color is it?" Danny said as he surveyed the curbside for a parked car.

"Huh? Oh it's Black," The short boy stated as he pointed directly at a limousine. Danny paused,"Uh, you mean the limo?"

"Oh yah, I guess it is, isn't it?" Klaus said with a shrug and walked for the 'car'.

"… Right…," Danny said with a sigh and followed him. What a day. A week ago he had been living with Vlad in the mansion, thinking about his upcoming birthday. Now here he was, sitting in the back of a limo that was now taking him off to a boarding school. How long was it going to be before his secret got out or worse, he started killing people?

"Well it wasn't that hard to keep my secret," Danny thought to himself as he looked out the window of the limo. It was raining and at the speed they were going the raindrops ran vertical and became to look like fine glass beads when they hit the window. He sighed. I mean, his parents found out about his secret once, and that was only because it had been broadcasted across the United States.

It's not that his parents weren't smart or anything, or rather that his mother wasn't smart or anything. He was sure that when he was younger he wasn't exactly the best at hiding his secret, but that was the luck of it all, no one ever found out. He could clearly remember a time where he was sure of his parent's ignorance to his situation.

"Tucker, we just wanted to thank you for helping to get our Jazz out of that awful hospital. Although I have to agree with the authorities that whole ghost plot thing seems pretty farfetched, hey baby?" Jack said as he turned towards Maddie.

"Yah everybody knows that humans can't have ghost powers!" Mrs. Fenton said with a chuckle as she bid farewell to the group and walked out with Jack. A smile etched Danny's face into a smile. "Yah, I betcha it'll be a shocker once they eventually find out. Oh my! My Child is the ghost kid!!?!?!?"

Young Daniel knew that his parents weren't dumb, but then why had they never found out on their own? This question always bubbled to the surface every now and then, but he could never find an explanation to the situation.

A small bump in the limo made Danny become aware of his surroundings once more.

"-nd then I said that I'd be thrilled to come and escort you from the airport, I mean really it wasn't like I had anything to do this weekend-" Klaus continued on. Danny nodded slightly and looked out the window again. They were now going through some forested area. Since the current conversation seemed a little dry, Danny decided to intrude with something that would keep him awake, "So how much longer until we get to this place?"

"Huh? Well we're there," The kid said as he was snapped from his long soliloquy. The young ghost turned back to the window to see what looked like a castle rise out of a sea of trees. What was this, the medieval era? "Wow, looks like you stole that from Europe or something," Danny mumbled in a joking way, but only received an odd look from Klaus.

"No, it's pretty old, but it was only made to look like a castle. The founder was just … uhm… fascinated with that kind of architecture… well I guess," Klaus said as he fumbled for words to explain the odd appearance. They came to a halt on the gravel driveway in front of the entrance where two men stood at the bottom of the steps that led to the entryway.

"Well anyway we're here. I was the only one with an empty bedroom so you'll be sharing a room with me. I'd take you there now, but I'm sure the headmaster wants to see you first," he said while pointing his thumb out the window at the shorter, graying man, "There you see him? The short one, that's Fredrick Douglas, the headmaster. The goon to the side of him is his assistant Milton Whipple, man he's a jerk. But Douglas'll probably want to tell you about stuff… or whatnot…"

"Great… can't wait. As long as it's warmer in there than in here," said Danny as he stepped outside the vehicle to see the duo had approached. The shorter headmaster greeted Daniel with a healthy grip and a thorough hand shaking, most of which almost shook Danny out of his shoes. "An honor it is Mr. Fenton, though we are so very sorry to hear about your loss. Alas he was a loss to this school as well. Believe it or not, your uncle was a major benefactor to our school! A truly wonderful man-" Douglas continued on, but Danny couldn't help but sidetrack from the current conversation.

"Is he sure of who died here? Vlad? A truly wonderful man? I'm pretty sure his mother wouldn't have called hi-," he found himself thinking before he snapped back to reality. "Huh?" Danny merely replied to the question he had been asked. Douglas' assistant, Whipple, rolled his eyes at Danny's dumfounded expression.

"Oh MY! Do you hear that, it seems that he hasn't yet recovered from his loss," the headmaster almost exclaimed, earning another eye roll from Whipple. "I asked if your plane trip was fine, but please please do come in! We have some important things to discuss and then it will be my pleasure to release you back into the care of Mr. Mitchell who will be your roommate," Douglas added with a smile.

Before Danny could respond, the headmaster swept an arm around the young half-ghost and turned him to face the entranceway to which he now found them walking towards. For a short man, he sure did have one hell of a grip.

"Must have done wrestling 'back in the day'. I'm sure he once went here and was on the team, you know because this place honestly screams 'wrestling team is my main income'," Danny found himself thinking as he was led through what seemed like a labyrinth until they finally came to a rather large office. At one end of the room a cliché fireplace sat, some logs already fed to the blaze to keep it alive. He was shown to a seat as Douglas made his way around a large desk and sat down himself.

"Good thing there's a fireplace in here otherwise this place would be as cold as outside. Do they honestly not know that their central heating is on the fritz?" Danny commented to himself as he looked around the room. The place looked like a small library with a three story ceiling jammed high and low with books. As he surveyed the room from one end to the other, he noticed something that seemed very odd.

"Where are the ladders? Does he CLIMB the bookshelves? No, I guess they're just for show," young Daniel thought to himself as he turned his attention back on the headmaster. Douglas was seated contently in his chair and seemed to be eyeing Daniel in a peculiar manner.

"Uh, nice place you have here, read all of these?" Danny inquired.

"Ah but of course, I actually had the extra story put up on the top because my book collection wouldn't all fit! But enough about my interests, let's talk about you, hm? It's quite curious, really, that you should end up here Mr. Fenton," At these words Whipple's eyes darted from some fly he had been following with an expression of detest over to Daniel.

"Why do rooms always seem so much smaller when everyone is looking at you? It's like someone said a joke and everyone is looking at me waiting for me to laugh along," Danny thought to himself as the headmaster continued. "Quite curious indeed, but we are most honored to have someone such as yourself come to our school, you really are unique in that respect here at Todstark boarding school."

Danny paused to think for a few minutes. Did they think that he was super rich now that Vlad had died? And were they expecting him to continue making whatever contributions Master's made?

"Listen, I'm sorry to say this but I'm not allowed at Vlad's fortune until I'm 22… so if you're planning on treating me special so that you'll continue to get donations, I'm sorry but that's out of my hands…," Danny stated flatly, continuing to keep a sharp eye on both of them to see what their reactions would be. To his dismay absolutely nothing happened, save for the fact that Douglas' smile probably grew wider.

"No, no my dear boy, you've mistaken my intentions. Believe me when I say this that you will be receiving no special privileges while in school, I was merely referring to your 'special gift'," the headmaster said almost awkwardly.

What? What what WHAT? "I'm sorry sir?" Danny said, now very confused. Whipple had now focused his attention back on the miserable little fly, seeming to have become fed up with Danny's thick-headedness.

"You know, your powers my boy! Don't tell me you lost them! You and Vlad Masters were the only half ghosts with unique powers like yours!" Douglas replied with a smile.

Having hit critical overload, Danny now found himself asking the only question that seemed to sum up every other question that had been presented with the headmaster's statement, "What???"

"Oh my, Vlad didn't tell you? Todstark is one of the premiere ghosting schools in the country, that's why he sent you here!" Douglas seemed content with this explanation, as if it had just explained the meaning of life. Unfortunately this still left young Daniel in a state of shock, leaving him to stare off into space like an idiot. A _ghosting school_?


	6. Chapter 6

"Well?" Ferdinand Douglas, the headmaster of Todstark boarding school for ghosts, inquired after several minutes of Daniel's silence. Well what? What was Danny supposed to say to that? 'Oh yippy when do classes start!'?

"Uhm, well sir I… I don't know…," Danny said at last. Douglas frowned, "Something wrong my boy?"

"No… it's just that I've never heard of this place before… and I've never heard of anything… well anyone being i half ghost /i other than Vlad and me.. I mean-," Daniel started but was cut off by an upraised hand from Douglas.

"I'm sure you have many questions, and I would love to answer them…," Douglas started, "but I wasn't expecting you to come here without prior knowledge of our schools history. I did not set up enough time for us to chat in the event that you did come here in such a state and unfortunately I have a business engagement that I must attend." At this Douglas gave a smile. "But I can assure you my nephew would be more than happy to tell you as much as you'd like to know. Now then, Whipple?"

"Yes sir?" Whipple asked as he turned towards Douglas. "Can you please escort young Daniel here to his room? And maybe while you're at it give him a small tour?" Douglas said while standing.

" i Escort /i him sir?" Whipple said as his mouth twisted into a sour frown. "Yes!" Douglas said with a jolly sort of rumbling laugh, "You don't expect the boy to find his room on his own do you? He'd get lost!"

"Of course…," Whipple said as he turned and made his way towards the door, "Follow me." Danny looked back at Douglas with a questioning glance but received nothing more than a healthy smile and a wave of the hand. "Go my boy! Don't want to miss your train!"

Daniel turned to look at the door and saw that Whipple had already left. With a jump he ran towards the door before taking a moment to look back at Douglas. "Thank you sir," he said quickly as he ran out and looked around. There down the hallway to the left he saw someone turn a corner.

"Hey! Wait up!" Danny yelled as he ran to the corridor entrance he had seen the person turn in, but came to a stop when he saw that the hallway was empty. "You have to be kidding me," the young ghost-child mumbled out loud to himself as he slowly started to make his way down the hall.

"Unbelievable. First my Family, then Vlad and now this. What ELSE is going to go wrong?" He thought to himself while walking down the hall. As he was passing an old mirror, he paused as his ghost sense went off. Acting quickly, Danny turned to the mirror with an upraised hand which glowed a bright green. He hadn't seen any other person around in this castle-like place so he guessed it was probably Whipple. God this whole ghost school thing was weird.

"I know you're there. Come out i now /i ," Young Daniel stated as he continued to keep his eyes fixed on the mirror. After a few seconds the head, not of Whipple, but of a mousy boy with black greasy hair popped out.

"Please! Don't tell them I'm here!," the boy whispered, looking around every which way. Danny paused then asked, "Tell who?"

"God them!," the boy started then looked down at Danny, "You must be new… How do you do that glowing hand trick? Oh never mind! Just don't tell them I'm here!" he finished before phasing back into the mirror. Daniel sighed and lowered his hand.

"Did you happen to see uh… Whipple was it? Go past here? He was supposed to show me where my room was…," Danny asked, now looking around every which way to see if 'they' would pop up at any moment. The boys head came out of the mirror again and looked at Danny this time. "Oh that old prune? He did that to you too?"

"What?" Daniel said as he looked back at the boy, "What do you mean by 'did that to you too'?"

"Ditched you! It almost took me a DAY to find the dormitories when I first came here!" the boy said with an eye roll as he brought out a hand, apparently to shake with Danny. "I'm Marty Summers… and you?"

"Uh," the young half-ghost replied before bringing his hand up for Marty to shake, "Daniel Fenton… you can call me Danny though…" At this Marty let out a surprised squeak. "You're Danny? Klaus has been talking about you! He-," he started but stopped and looked at something behind Daniel.

"What..," Danny said as his ghost sense went off at the same time he turned to see Whipple standing behind him. "Hey, you-" Danny started but was cut off. "Where did you go? I don't know WHAT you think I do, but I AM a busy man and can not waste my time showing some… child… around here. And you, Mr. Summers. i WHAT /i do you think you are doing?" wheezed Whipple while glaring at the two through slitted eyes. Marty mumbled something inaudible which earned him a harsh hiss from the slender man, "You should be in your room studying rather than fooling around here."

"But-" Summers started before being interrupted. "But what?" Whipple sneered, warning Marty that he was getting tired of the conversation. "Nothing sir," the boy mumbled, adverting his eyes towards the ground. "It was nice meeting you Danny," Marty finally finished before disappearing.

Whipple, seeming pleased with himself, finally turned towards Danny. "Now, you will follow me this time. Keep up since I won't go looking for you again, I am only so much of a generous man," he said as he turned around and began to walk away swiftly. With a last glance behind him, Young Daniel followed quickly behind making sure to keep Whipple in sight no matter how many dirty moves he tried to loose Danny with.

After a few lefts and rights and a thoroughly confused Danny, Mr. Whipple came to a stop at a dead end. The half-ghost teen waited for a minute or so before inquiring about the questionable stop. "Uhm I'm not sure if your 'busy job' has distracted you but, this is a dead end," Danny said, trying not to sound too sarcastic with the apparent sarcastic sentence he had made. Whipple glared back at Danny before looking towards the wall in front of him.

"No, this is the entrance to the dormitories. Now there are," started Milton Whipple but paused as a devilish grin grew on his face, "there is only one thing you need to know about this dead end and that is walk through it."

"Walk through it?"

"Yes, walk thought it. Watch me," Whipple said as he started forward and phased through the wall. "This is going to be… just weird being here," Danny thought to himself as he walked forward as well, but instead of walking through the wall he slammed face first into the stoned barrier and stumbled back.

"DAMBIT WHATHE HELL!," Daniel yelled while tightly pinching his nose. At his yell Whipple popped his head back through the wall then walked out beside Danny. "Oh I'm terribly sorry… did I forget to mention that you needed to have the key to the dormitories in your pocket to phase through? I've told so many children how to get here that I must have completely skipped over that part. Here," Whipple said as he picked a skeleton key from his pocket and handed it to Danny, "Now then, I must be going." With that he turned on his heels and walked out with his head held high and his ego as visible as a lighthouse on a dark clear night.

"Ass," Danny mumbled to himself as he clutched the key in his hand and phased through the wall. A large room sat on the other side filled with many couches for relaxing and tables for studying. On the south end of this lounge area stood a fireplace with a fire burning that filled the room with a warm glow. At Danny's entrance, a boy that had been sitting on one of the couches closest to the fire turned and looked in his direction.

"Danny! Was that noise out there you?," Klaus asked as he stood up and walked over. "Yah Prince Charmbing tricked be into baking by nose bleed," Danny mumbled as he raised the hand he was pinching his nose with enough for Klaus to see.

"What an ass," Klaus said with a frown, "Don't worry, no one likes him. We all call him Whimple Pimple."

"Whibple Pibple?" Daniel asked with a raised eyebrow. "Yah it's not too good is it?" Klaus admitted with a sigh, "But you try and come up with something with that kind of a name."

Danny sighed for a moment then looked around, letting go of his nose and touching it lightly to test if the bleeding had stopped. Nothing. "Nice place, looks like it came right out of one of those Harry Potter books, well the movies anyway," Daniel commented as he walked over to the couch Klaus had previously been sitting on.

"Kinda I guess, but all boarding schools have a common room that connects to the dormitories, so she really didn't imagine anything new," Klaus said while following Danny over to the couch, "Want to sit down? Or do you need a Kleenex for your nose?"

"Hey wait a minute," Daniel said while turning back to Klaus, "Wait wait, hold on! What are you! You came and got me from the airport and it i happened /i to slip your mind that you were a ghost or part ghost or whatever you were and that the boarding school that I was being sent to was a ghosting school?"

"Sorry, I thought you knew… it didn't occur to me that probably the greatest half-ghost didn't know about his own world," Klaus said with a shrug, apparent sarcasm seeping into his sentence.

"Ok hold up, Douglas mentioned something about half-ghosts other then me… I mean… was there more than just two people who suffered from a freak accident that I didn't know about? Or what because I don't-," Danny started but stopped when he saw the funny look Klaus was giving him.

"No… no 'freak accidents', naturally born," Klaus said slowly, pausing to look over at Danny who was giving a funny face in return, "Here I'll show you, you have your key right? We need to go back through the entrance. The dormitories and common room have this ancient spell or whatever that keeps ghosts from phasing through walls or disappearing or reappearing in here. The only way out is to have the key with you when going through the entrance, keeps us from sneaking out easily, though people still manage to get through the main entrance at night."

"Right, so you mentioned people, i where /i exactly are they?" Danny said while following Klaus out through the entrance. Klaus sighed, "You know, not here. Your plane touched down early in the morning so the ones who snuck out are probably still out drinking or drunk in their beds, and the more school serious are just sleeping."

"Right, can't believe I missed the excitement," Daniel mumbled in sarcasm. Klaus chuckled and turned to one of the walls of the corridor they had found themselves in. "Follow me," he said as he phased through the wall.

"Definitely not going to get over this," Danny thought to himself as he followed Klaus and looked around. Outside the temperature had risen slightly, it had stopped raining and the sun now shown through the rain clouds. Birds sang in mirth as they circled large oak trees that had just a few more leaves to drop before winter. "Nice day isn't it?" Klaus called back to Danny as he started down a hill away from the school. Daniel looked over to Klaus and ran after him.

"Yah I guess, where are we going?" Danny asked as he caught up with Klaus and began to walk beside him. "Oh I don't live too far from here so I'm going to show you something rather than explain it to you, it will be much easier that way," Mitchell said while nodding his head.

"Are we allowed to just leave?" the half-ghost inquired while looking back at the castle of a school. "If you live close. Most kids who do usually visit their homes on weekends, but not many live near." Klaus commented with a shrug, "It's not like this place is a prison or anything. Well for the college kids like us it isn't. Kids as young as 13 come here, so I guess with their intensive schooling they would look for any excuse to get out."

"What kind of schooling?" asked Danny quickly after Klaus' last comment. He had a million questions to ask and not enough time to ask them in it seemed. Klaus paused for a moment to think. "Well you know… it's a ghosting school. Proper ways of using your ghost abilities, moral classes on the best way to use them, history classes, and stuff like that," he finished while continuing on his way. Their feet now found them on a graveled path that lead away from the school and through lush green fields that looked like they housed many sports activities and leisure time.

"Ghost abilities? So you mean like this," Daniel said while holding up his hand to show it glowing green. "Yah right I i wish /i ! No you and uhm, your uncle? Are the only ones … one who can do that… uhm well since he… uh…," Klaus said as he fumbled for words on Danny's loss.

"It's fine, I get it," Danny said while looking at where the path was leading them. A little ways off and down a slanting hill young Daniel could discern a small town. "Hey people live near here? I mean are they all well… like this school or are they normal people," Danny said almost awkwardly.

"Both, but mostly normal humans," Klaus said while looking in the same direction. "Do they know about this school?," inquired Danny.

"Yah, but most of them prefer not to talk about it. This town is on the top ten most haunted towns in America. Some tourists will come and ask around where the most haunted spots are but the people will sort of turn away and say they have no idea what they are talking about, it's kind of funny really," Klaus stated with a small grin.

"So those moral classes are failing the kids huh?" Danny said with a chuckle, making Klaus laugh with him as well. "Yah right? No, many many years ago before this school was established, well you know what? I'll let you learn that in history class, we're coming up on the unit. It really would be interesting if they didn't drill it into our heads for 5 years," Klaus said with a sigh as he stopped walking.

Danny, not noticing Klaus had stopped, continued on before jerking to a stop and looking over.

"We're here," Mitchell said as he took a right off the path and started walking. Daniel, being perplexed by the sudden veer in direction onto wet grass and into a forest, followed after him.

"So do you know a kid named Summers?" Danny said as he walked into the wet brush that Klaus had disappeared behind. He paused quickly, however, when he came to the other side to see Mitchell had stopped.

"Marty, you know where he is?" Klaus said looking back over to Danny. "Yah sure he popped out of a mirror at me and was raving about 'them' or something like that," said Daniel with a shrug. Klaus sighed, "Do you know where he is now? He's not the school football star or something if you know what I mean… and well he disappeared Friday when a mob was after him, bullies you know? Though I'm sure you don't."

"Oh you don't know the half of it," Danny mumbled while looking around, "Well Whipple saw him and told him to get his ass into his room and study or something so I'm sure that's what he did. Ok where the hell are we going?"

"Oh well that's good, uhm this way," Klaus said as he continued walking until they came to a clearing. Here in the middle of the woods a small cottage-like house sat with smoke coming out of its chimney. The afternoon light shown cheerfully on its straw thatched roof and cascaded down towards the small garden that framed the outside of the house and entrance way.

"Over here," Klaus said as he started around the house towards the back. "Don't tell me that your roof is," Danny started but was cut off by Klaus. "Ha ha, no, it's just for looks trust me. It gets REAL cold here in the winter," he said with a chuckle as he came to a stop in front of a few grave markers that were behind the house.

Most of the graves were covered in white flowers that grew all around the back of his yard where three of the graves were surrounded by the flowers but were not covered in them leaving the graves to stick out as blank rectangles amid the sea of flowers. All of the markers seemed to be simple, being made out of a rock found in the area with rounded edges at the top.

Daniel came to a stop beside Klaus and looked around. "Your family?" he asked while turning towards Klaus who had moved to one of the graves that wasn't covered in flowers.

"Yah, you can say that," Klaus said while beckoning Danny forward and pointing at the gravestone in front of him, "Here, check it out."

Danny paused for a moment before walking over and taking a look. On the top of the gravestone was etched the name of something Mitchell. Some dirt in recent years had found its way on the first name, blocking it from view. "Your grandfather?" Danny asked, now quiet perplexed as to why Klaus was showing him this.

"No look at the date," said Klaus. Daniel turned back to the grave marker and saw the date to be June 17, 1990. "He died around when you were born? You're 18 right? I was born on April 3rd of that year…," Danny said slowly causing Klaus to sigh. "No here," he said as he knelt before the marker and wiped away the dirt then moved away. A gasp came from Danny as he read what had been uncovered. There on the top of the marker read 'Klaus Mitchell' in large chiseled letters.


	7. Chapter 7

Klaus paused for a moment before speaking. "My birthday is June 17th, there's no death date there because I technically haven't died yet..," Mitchell started slowly, judging Danny's reaction to see if he could continue. From the blank stare on Daniel's face Klaus figured it was as good a time as any to continue.

"When a… uh… natural half-ghost is born, their bodies technically die… It's not like a stillbirth or anything, but when born the body dies so the spirit takes over for the body and becomes physical… but it's a spirit and not a body which allows them to phase through things and such, like a normal spirit would. When I say the body is technically dead, I mean it's just not used… I mean it grows, allowing the spirit to grow, which is why we have to buy large coffins to put the body in," Klaus paused and put a hand to his height, "Unfortunately my parents goofed and didn't buy a long enough coffin which is why I'm so short… I stopped growing when I was in like… the beginning of high school…"

Danny stared at the grave for awhile, trying to process everything that had happened to him that day. "Alright let's see… go to a ghost boarding school… find out that there's such thing as a i natural /i half-ghost… right… ok…," Daniel thought as he started to slowly nod his head.

"Uh… yes what? You get it?" Klaus asked slowly, not sure if Danny was loosing his sanity or just nodding for the pleasure of it.

"Yah… but how? I mean… Just wow… … how did it happen? I mean someone someday just didn't decide to become half-ghost or something… right?" Danny asked finally, his curiosity getting the better of him.

Klaus sighed. "No, a really long time ago… like way long time ago in Europe, before America had been established a witch by the name Abrienda Williams cursed an entire village for burying their dead in what she claimed was her land. Ever read the Crucible?" Klaus stopped suddenly and looked over to Danny.

"Uh yah, my sophomore year or something," Danny said slowly while trying to think back to the play. "Something about the Salem witch trials, right?"

"Yah, remember the main antagonist? Abigail Williams? She was a descendant of the witch that cursed the village," Klaus stated as if this was a piece of common knowledge.

"Right… so you're telling me that the fictional character of a play is a descendant of that witch or something…" Danny said in an almost sarcastic tone now believing that Klaus was playing with him.

"No seriously! It's been drilled into our heads since forever. Did you know the author of that play, Arthur Miller, went to Salem and read the names of the people who participated in the witch trials and got the idea for the play? You know like his own spin on history? Turns out the guy pretty much wrote what happened! The only witch in Salem was the one that got away," Klaus sighed with a shrug, "Oh well, we have pretty good relations with witches now anyway so theres-"

"Oh come on you can't be serious…" Danny said with a roll of his eyes. "Yah yah, just wait 'till history class, hm? A year ago I was rolling my eyes at a story of some half-ghost who could shoot ghost rays or something," Klaus stated sarcastically. Daniel just rolled his eyes again and looked back around at the house. "So this is-" Danny started but was interrupted as a woman came out the backdoor and called to them.

"Klaus is that you? Is that one of your friends? Come over here won't you!" the woman said with a bright smile as she beckoned them near. Daniel paused then looked over to Klaus who gave a sigh. "My mom," he said before he made his way over to her with Danny following behind.

"My goodness it's a Sunday! What are you doing here?" she said as she pulled her son into a hug. Klaus, now red, pulled away after a few seconds. "Mom I'm in college now, remember?"

"Oh yes that's right, too cool now to give your mother hugs. But you don't come over as much as you used to in high school! I get lonely! Especially since I only see your father on weekends and nights!" she exclaimed as she pulled Klaus in for another hug. This caused a chuckle to escape from Daniel before he could stop. After a few seconds of staring at the ground, he finally braved a glance up to see that the mother had loosened her son from her death grip and was now smiling at him with her hands on her hips.

"Now who is this handsome young fellow? I've never seen him before, is he a transfer student?" She said, her smile still teasing her lips. "Yah this is Daniel Fenton? He was the uh….. uhm…" Klaus stopped, yet again unsure of what to call Danny and Vlad's relationship.

"Son… well adoptive son of Vlad Masters…," Danny awkwardly said before he was engulfed by Mrs. Mitchell. "Oh MY! That wonderful man who so generously donated to the school? I've met him before! How is he doing?" she finished with a smile as she released Danny.

"Uh well…" Klaus started but was cut off by Daniel, "Fine…"

"Well that's marvelous to hear!!! I'm so glad he's doing alright. He defiantly sent you to the right place! Todstark is the finest ghosting school around!" Mrs. Mitchell finished with a sigh before gesturing towards the back door to which she had made her first appearance. "Why don't you two boys come in? Join your father and me for supper hm?" She said while looking at Klaus before turning and walking towards the door.

Danny looked over to Klaus for clues on what to do but received only a shrug in return. "Sorry, my mom has it in her head that we're eating here so there's really no stopping her," Klaus said with a sigh before he turned and followed after his mother.

After taking a last look at the graveyard and commenting to himself on how his day couldn't get any weirder, Daniel turned around and followed Klaus inside. As soon as he walked through the door, the smell of ginger and other assorted spices hit his nose. Looking around to find the cause, Danny now found himself in a small kitchen decorated in drapery and towels with plaid white and red patterns that had a small apple every square inch or so. It seemed to him like one of those fake kitchens you might find on those cheesy 'at home' cooking shows.

As he continued to scan the kitchen he felt a sharp tap on his shoulder. "Mom's not done making the food so we can go to my room. Come on it's this way," Klaus said as he turned and walked out. Danny paused for only one moment before following Klaus up a small staircase to the second floor, wanting to soak in as much he could of the homey atmosphere he hadn't experienced in over three years.

"I don't have much here since it's all in my dorm room, just some old comics and stuff," Klaus said with a sigh as he pushed open a door to the right of the staircase and plopped down on what Danny assumed to be his bed. The gifted half-ghost came to a stop at Klaus' bedroom door and looked inside with a widening smirk.

"Thomas the Tank Engine? So who painted that on your wall?" he said as he walked in and closed the door behind him. Klaus blushed slightly and looked away. "I don't stay in here much anymore since I started high school, that's when I moved into the dorms alright?"

"Ah, so I'll assume you loved Thomas up until high school then?" Danny commented, trying to push his smirk back down to a grin. "Yah you're pretty clever, laugh why dontcha? I never got a chance to change it…" Klaus said, still a nice shade of red.

"No it's cool, I never had anything painted on my walls at all, it was just a blue… though I guess that was a good thing since I just took down my Thomas poster when I didn't like him anymore and put up Humpty Dumpty's" Danny stated with a shrug.

"Yah I guess, hey you like them? They're like my favorite band! I have a poster too," Klaus said with a grin as he rolled off his bed and walked over to his closet. "Well I see we're going to get along then," Danny said with a chuckle but stopped quickly when he realized what was happening. After another short pause he started to scan the room again, a grin appearing on his features again.

Quite perplexed by Danny's sudden stop, Klaus turned from the closet and looked over to him to make sure his new friend was alright. "Danny?"

After another long pause Danny let out a long sigh and smiled again. "Yah sorry… it's … just been a long time since I've been to a friend's house…. Had… a friend really…" Daniel finished as he turned to beam his genuine smile at Klaus.

"Oh… well uhm," Klaus fumbled as he brought out his Super Nintendo, the pressure on him seeming to increase ten fold to help make sure Danny was as comfortable as possible. He wanted to make sure he wasn't going to bring up anymore painful memories on the talented half-ghost if he could help it. Daniel, sensing this, quickly shook his head and walked over to Klaus.

"You've got to be kidding me, you still HAVE one of those?" Danny said as he helped fish the rest of it out of the closet. "You bet your life! This was the first thing I saved up my money for to buy!!" the scrubby brown haired kid said through a muffle as he dug deeper into his closet, looking for his games and controllers.

"Alright I've got Zelda, Super Mario All Stars, Tetras, Yoshi's Island, Turtles in Time, Super Mario Kart, Ghouls & Ghosts, Doom, Lemmings, Mortal Combat the first one!, and some others…" he said as he reemerged from the wreck that could be described as a closet and started to untangle the two controllers he had found.

"Mortal Combat definitely," Danny said as he grabbed the second controller in Klaus' hand and started to help untangle them.

The feeling almost felt foreign to Danny. Here he was, sitting on the cold, hardwood floor of someone who could be considered a friend of his, playing a video game and making comments every now and then about something funny that popped into either of their heads. Talking about what once was, is and would hopefully be soon. This felt right, why had he stopped this? It felt so good to be doing something that seemed familiar to him rather than hiding away in his bedroom all day. Family, he hadn't known the word in awhile, was this his second chance?

"Dinner!" A warm voice rang up from the bottom of the small staircase. An audible 'aw' could be heard in return as the super Nintendo was turned off and two teenage boys followed soon after.

"Man when was the last time you played? You kicked my ASS! You said Mortal Combat because you were setting me up, weren't you?" Klaus said as he jumped down the last two steps and disappeared into the kitchen.

"Not exactly, but what can I say? I trained with the best young padawon," Danny said with a chuckle as a memory of him and Tuck playing a video game popped into his mind, "Trained with the best."

"Ha ha ha," the curly-haired boy droned sarcastically as he walked back out of the kitchen holding four sets of plates and the like and started to set the dining room table. "Need help?" Daniel asked but before Klaus could respond, a humble chirp was heard complimented by the head that poked out into the doorway.

"Actually yes you can, why don't you come in here dear?"

"Yah sure," Fenton said as he turned for the kitchen. As soon as he walked in he was handed a bowl of vegetables and a basket of bread. "They go in the middle of the table dear," Mrs. Mitchell said as the back door to the house opened to reveal an older man in his late forties. The man gave the exiting Danny a perplexed look before turning to Mrs. Mitchell.

"A friend of Klaus', Margaret?" he asked as he hung his coat on a rack beside the back door.

"Is that your father?" Daniel inquired as he walked out and put the food where he had been told went. "Yah, he works at the school as a high school teacher so we might see him but not that much," Klaus replied as he turned and walked into the kitchen.

"Hey! What are you doing home?" Mr. Mitchell asked upon Klaus' entrance. With a small sigh Danny pulled out a chair from the table and started to sit down when he was once again beckoned to the kitchen.

"-nd this is, hey Danny!" Klaus called out of the kitchen. The half-ghost heaved another delicate sigh before pushing in the chair and walking over to the doorway. "Hi…" came the awkward reply.

"So, the adopted son of Vlad Masters eh?" Mr. Mitchell stated while looking Danny up and down, a twinkle escaping from his eyes, "I was wondering when you might show up."

"Uh, you knew him?" came Danny's dumfounded response to which Mr. Mitchell only chuckled. "Yes of course, but come," he said as he picked up the rest of the food Margaret hadn't, "Let's eat before my wife's cooking gets cold, hm?"

With that Mr. Mitchell turned and walked into the dining room and set down the food. Danny hesitated for only one moment before walking over to the dinner table and sitting down as the others had done. After a short grace was said dinner was served, and fast seeing that Danny and Klaus hadn't eaten all day.

"My you two, why don't you leave some crumbs at least!" Mrs. Mitchell joked with a small, cheery chuckle. Klaus turned to her with a piece of bread shoved in his mouth.

"Sorry, we haven't eaten since this morning," he stated as he finished off the piece of bread in his hand.

Dinner seemed to speed by for Danny. A lot of questions were asked about his family but he didn't mind, he felt like he could tell them. They weren't sad questions such as 'how did they die' but more to the accord of 'what were they like' and 'did you have sit down dinners like this?', making it seem that they were more interested in helping their names live on rather than torturing Danny with the images he continuously tried to suppress from his mind. Being there with the Mitchell's at that moment almost felt like he was in fact home, sitting down with his own family and enjoying their company after waking from a long and painful nightmare.

"Well maybe you two boys should stop by next weekend hm?" Mrs. Mitchell suggested as both her and her husband walked the teens to the door, "I'm sure my food is i much /i better than that grub I hear they serve there."

"Maybe if we're not swamped by homework," Klaus said with a shrug and walked out, "Bye, love you."

Danny followed out the door after Klaus' leave and waved. "Thanks for the food."

"Anytime dear!" Mrs. Mitchell said with a sigh before closing the door.

"Well that was less painful than I imagined…," Klaus stated with a deep sigh.

"No.. it was nice… you should stay with them more often," Fenton said while looking towards the ground as they were walking. Mitchell stared at him for a moment before looking forward again.

"I guess you're right… Well I'm sure your stuff is in my room by now, I'm sure you'd like to unpack?" Klaus said as he picked up the pace, trying to change the subject, "I have plenty of Humpty Dumpty posters up but if you want to add to the collection."

"Yah I guess," Danny said with a shrug as they continued on. The sun had set already but it wasn't dark since the moon was almost full and spread enough light for them to see where they were going, well Klaus at least since he knew where he was going. They walked in silence for a bit until the walls of the castle-like building came into view.

After a short trip through the walls of the building then into the common room, to which Danny didn't forget to use his key, the two teens now found themselves in a room that was empty on one side save for a few packed boxes.

"Man finally," Klaus sighed in exasperation as he collapsed onto his bed.

"I'll just take a small guess that this is my side," Danny said as he sat down on his empty bed and looked around, "These rooms are pretty small."

"Yah well they're not that bad with just one," Mitchell said with a shrug and looked over, "Need help?"

"Nah I'm good," came Danny's reply as he opened the top box in the pile and started to unpack.

Around midnight Danny had successfully unpacked most of the essentials. Tired and beat he sat down on his now made bed and stared at his half full closet. How long had it been since he had found Vlad half dead in the mansion? Now long and already he sat there, now living in a ghosting school dormitory. To say the least (or most since he had been continually thinking this throughout the day) it was just a tad weird… and so sudden.

Daniel was awakened from his slumbering thoughts as the long since sleeping Klaus gave a short and startling snore then turned on his side away from Danny. The awake teen sighed and lay back on his bed. Tomorrow he would be starting classes for God knows what and there he lay, awake at midnight before his new day.

Danny turned on his bed and kicked off his shoes before scooting in all the way and pulling the covers over himself. It felt like it had been forever since he had smelled the mountain fresh scent his sheets gave off. The last time would have been when he was still living with Vlad.

Vlad Masters. So many years ago he had met his father's old college friend and from then on he had called him enemy. After the 'incident' that claimed the lives of his loved ones, he had eventually learned to call Vlad by a new name, Friend. It was now, after Vlad's death, that Daniel now called Masters by the one name he had longed to hear in life. Father.

Danny rolled to his side, staring at the wall that seemed to be built out of brick. It was an old wall, painted white a few times to hide the many marks bored students before him had drawn. If he stared at one spot for long enough he could discern a few stick figure drawings……

Father. The common room that connected all the dorm rooms was filled with no one by now. Since it was the day before classes started again, people usually turned in around eleven or sooner. It was quiet save for a faint muffled sobbing that could be heard in the direction of room 111, the new home of Daniel Fenton.

"Why are you crying Daniel?"

Danny paused then turned to see if Klaus had awakened. The lump of blankets that was Klaus slowly lifted up and down, rhythmically proportional to his snores.

"Come now, you've already forgotten me? Maybe I shouldn't have given you that small break," the all too familiar voice replied as it grew in intensity and volume.

Turning his head quickly towards the door, Danny now found himself looking at the mirror that hung there.

"Yes?" replied his reflection with a smirk as he sat up on the bed.

"No… just leave me alone," Danny said as he turned his head away.

"Now why would I do that? You're so ungrateful for the time I gave you. Shame on me, I wont do it ever again I promise."

Daniel turned back to his reflection to see that he had gotten up from the bed and walked over to the mirror, his red eyes now clearly visible by the moonlight that flooded the room.

"I-" started Danny but was cut off. "Please let me explain something i Daniel /i , before you start weeping over that lost cause I just want you to know that he was a coward. A coward that begged for his life," finished Danny's reflection who now wore another smirk, his red eyes gleaming.

"He wouldn't," Daniel replied, gritting his teeth as he sat up on his own bed.

"Oh but he did, like the coward that he is."

"St-" began Danny but paused for a moment, his eyes going wide, "So then you… he…"

"Hm? What was that?"

"You Killed him!"

Danny's reflection just smirked in reply.

"Ah details, but I don't think you're ready just yet. I don't want to break you too early," he said as a large grin spread across his face. With that he turned and walked back over to the bed in the mirror and sat back down, shifting into the position Danny was now in himself.

"COME BACK HERE!" Daniel yelled as he got to his feet, his reflection mimicking his moves.

"Huh? Wha?" The lump on Klaus' bed replied as it shifted around to show a head under the mass, "Danny?"

Fenton paused before turning from the mirror to look at the sleepy teen.

"So… sorry," Danny mumbled as he turned and sat back down on his bed. He rolled over away from Klaus and sighed. "Go back to sleep…"

Dazed and confused, Klaus rolled over as well, leaving Danny to his own thoughts as he fell back asleep.

Create character who will be bad guy, obvious but not so

Make underlying plan to create more half breeds like danny and vlad to control (Douglas actually working to prevent it, he is not seen much and when he is, he's in a hurr to go to make him look like a suspect) reason why vlad donated to the school generously

Evil side of danny starts to grow stronger

Whipple actually working against evil character

Evil danny finally shows what he did to vlad that night and what he did with the suppresent vlad was working on

End danny is captured because they cant exactly figure out how danny came to be (they couldn't go vlads route because he got ecto acne) try to use him in experiments, becomes apparent he is too much so they try to destroy him, evil danny getting mad that they were interfering with him trying to break free of danny gets rid of them but now the biggest enemy has yet to be defeated, evil Danny. Tuck and Sam come down from heaven to help Danny fight against him


	8. Chapter 8

He was running. Running from who or what or for what purpose he had no idea. He had gotten the idea to stop but something inside kept him running. He had a feeling that whatever he was running for was just in his grasp, if only he could move faster.

Houses passed by him as he ran. He looked down to see that he was following the sidewalk that took him from his school to his house but one strange thing perplexed him, there was no one in sight as he ran.

As he trudged on as fast as he could he saw the top of Fenton Works rise from the horizon. With an excited yelp he picked up his pace. Of course! This was what he was running to. He was running home.

Seconds, then minutes, then what felt like hours started to rush by, but his house came no closer in distance. He tried to keep his speed, run as fast as he could but it still lay far away from his grasp.

Suddenly after what felt like hours of struggle, everything around him went black. For a brief moment he was felt with joy to see that his house stood against the piercing darkness, a lone survivor. But that too was engulfed in the blackness that now pressed against him with despair and loneliness.

'NO!' He cried but no sound came from his mouth. He tried to speed up but his legs would no longer move. iHelp me… someone please help me…./i he thought to himself as he collapsed to the ground.

'Of course Daniel, I am here,' came a warm and familiar voice to his ears. 'Vlad? Vlad is that you?' He shouted in hopelessness.

'Yes,' the voice replied as a foot stepped into Danny's line of vision. Looking up slowly he saw the soft smile Vlad wore, the smile echoing what his parents would give him when he needed reassurance.

He bent down slowly and put his hands under Danny's underarms to help him to his feet. 'Thank you thank you, I thought I was lost' Danny said as he continued to thank Vlad, just grateful to know that he wasn't the only one there.

'It was nothing my dear boy, I-,' started Vlad but stopped as his eyes grew wide, a small trickle of blood seeping down the crevice of his lips.

'Vlad…. VLAD?' Danny yelled as he ran over and caught the older man before he started to tip over. Looking around for the cause of Vlad's sudden collapse, he found a knife sticking out from his back.

'Like it Daniel? Isn't it wonderful? Now no one will bother us,' came the amused reply of the man standing behind Vlad Masters.

'You..' Danny breathed as he slowly lowered Vlad to rest on the ground.

'Really now we need to work on your greetings, you're not very good at them,' The other one said as he walked around the body towards Danny. 'You're a murderer Danny, cold-blooded murderer'

'No NO! You're the one who did it! You're the one who.. who," Danny stopped, unable to continue.

'But you see we are one in the same. I AM you! Do you not see? How we look the same? I am just all of those feelings and thoughts you suppressed for so long. So if we are the same then that means YOU killed him Danny. You killed Vlad.'

'I would NEVER! I fought for the good of everyone, why would I murder? I wouldn't…. I couldn't….' Danny assured himself as his voice grew in weakness.

'Is that so? Then why are you holding the knife?' the other one said with a smirk, his red eyes glowing in the dim light.

'I-' Danny started to say but looked down to see that he in fact was holding the blade that had once been lodged in the back of Vlad Masters, his blood slowly dripping from the tip to come to rest in the puddle of blood that was forming around the quickly fading body. Danny's arms and clothes too were now drenched in Vlad's blood.

'You killed him Danny. We killed him, together." The voice whispered as a mirror appeared in front of Danny. Looking up quickly he saw that it was the reflection of a scrawny, frightened teenager covered in blood as red as his eyes.

"NOOOO!" Daniel screamed as he tossed and turned in his sleep. Klaus, who had just reentered the room after taking a shower, quickly threw his toiletries onto his bed and ran over to Danny.

"Danny? Danny? Are you alright?" Klaus said as he shook Danny from his screaming and tossing.

"I'M NOT A MURDERER!!" Danny shouted as he sat up quickly and looked around, slowly allowing his gaze to fixate upon Klaus.

Mitchell took a step back and stared at Danny, "Hey, are you ok? That sounded like one bad dream…"

Danny paused for a moment before looking at his hands. "Fine…," he mumbled as he pulled the shirt that he wore away from his chest to examine if it was bloody. A small sigh escaped his lips as he found, to his relief, that it was blood-free.

iCome now Danny, how heartless do you think I am?/i, came a reply that echoed in his ears.

Danny paused as his eyes grew in diameter before looking up at Klaus to see if he had said anything. After a long moment Klaus finally questioned the stare Danny now pressed on him, "What…"

"Did you say… something…"

"No…. Are you ok? Maybe it was too cold outside yesterday… maybe I should bring you to the nurses….. I should do that, are you ok?" Klaus began to comment out loud, worried that his new roommate might actually be mentally unstable or sick. Either one wasn't good but inside Klaus secretly prayed for the later of the two.

"No… Fine…," Danny mumbled as he swung his feet over his bed and stood, "How long until our first class…"

"About an hour…," Klaus replied, his brows knitting together in uncertainty of Daniel's response. Danny just nodded in reply and went to his closet to fish out the toiletries he had unpacked the night before. Without another word he walked over to the front door and out.

".. Does he even know where to go?" Klaus asked himself out loud, trying to remember if he had shown Danny the bathrooms. With a small shrug he turned and started making his bed. A few minutes passed before the front door opened to reveal Danny standing in the doorway.

"… … …So where are the bathrooms again?"

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

History class was never a forte of Danny's. For that matter anything having to do with school really wasn't, but History was on the A list of 'Suck'. So then why did he now find himself sitting in 'HIST 101: History of Ghouls, Goblins, and the occasional misdemeanor".

"Well it sound's exciting" the words he had uttered not 5 minutes ago now echoed in the back of his mind. Klaus had only nodded slightly, "Yah… sure, if you like root canals"

Root canals can be described as painful, or maybe unpleasant. You didn't hear anyone saying they were looking forward to it. But this class, though he was only 5 minutes into it, was just MORE than painful and unpleasant. It encompassed the entire spectrum of the 'painful' vocabulary.

"I'd place this somewhere around 'Your arm is trapped underneath a boulder and you're forced to chew it off'…," Danny mumbled as he glanced over in Klaus' direction.

"Hey…," Danny said as his voice slightly grew in volume. There beside him was Klaus catching up on, Danny guessed, some much needed Z's.

"He's like a bear… he slept like a rock last night and he's out now, what is that? 24 hours?" Danny commented to himself as he shook Klaus slightly, "If I'm going down so are you."

"1692!" Klaus shouted as he quickly sat up. Almost the entire class turned from their side conversations and looked over to Danny and Klaus before going back to what they were doing. Surprisingly enough, the Professor seemed undeterred as he continued to drone in a monotone.

"What is class over already?" Klaus asked as he let out a long yawn and started to rub his eyes with his fists.

"No, it's only been 5 minutes"

"And you…"

"Have changed my mind about this class… You're right, it sucks," Danny commented as he looked away and propped his head against his right hand.

"Well.. Sucks is such a strong word… I don't think I used those exact words…"

"You're right I think I heard an "ass" among the other colorful words," Danny mumbled as he looked up at the clock. Great news, it was now six minutes into class, "We get out in 40 or something, right?"

"No, 44 minutes"

"Close enough"

_-_-_-_-_- 40 or something minutes later -_-_-_-_-_

"I've never seen so many people rush out of class as fast as that, and I used to be in remedial algebra…" Danny said as he shouldered his backpack and shook the sleep from his eyes. Klaus, following Danny's actions, walked out into the isle and made his way for the classroom door.

"Yah well this is just a Freshman class, I hear they get better," Klaus said as he exited the classroom with Danny.

"You know I was thinking," Danny said slowly allowing himself to revel in the fact that he came up with a good question, "What's the point of a "Ghosting" College? I mean isn't the point of going to college is to learn about the field we're going into? I mean, what's there to go into?"

"Believe it or not a bunch of stuff. The job I'm going into is magical relations," Klaus said as he turned to look at Danny who was now wearing a frown.

"What?"

"Yah, ghosts need an ambassador as well. You know, I'm sure, that most people out there, normal or not, believe ghosts to be hostile… Not all of us are. You know there are some with unfinished business, some irrational, but most are just here, waiting to move on. We need delegates to keep friendly relations."

Danny paused. "Well, what can they do to us? I mean all I've fought were ghosts but no regular person can hurt us."

"That's the thing, no iregular/i person, yes, but there are magic spells that can hurt us, magical creatures that can touch us or harm us if they want," Klaus said as he started to name anything that popped up in his mind.

"Alright, alright I get it," Danny said with a sigh, "But what other jobs can you get?"

"Oh right, well like I said lots, archeology especially. Since we can go intangible we can go inside ruins without damaging them, go underground to see how far down fossils are. I wanted to do that when I was little but there's really no money in it. But there are a lot of jobs dealing with intangibility. Firefighting is a big one. Of course you need to get certified in a rigorous course that covers how we're supposed to conduct those jobs in front of normal people. Then there's the field o-"

"What about space? I mean is there anything I can do here to get into NASA?" Danny asked quickly, cutting off Klaus in the process.

"Uh well I'm not sure," Klaus said as he paused with a frown. After a moment of silence Mitchell looked over to Danny.

"Well all I think you could do is maybe get a technical or flight job for them, but you still wouldn't be using much of your skills."

"So there's nothing I could major in?" Danny asked, now a little down hearted.

"Not that I can think of, why did you always want to be an astronaut?"

"Something like that," breathed Danny with a sigh. At the very thought of being able to go into the space program his spirit had risen, even if it had only been from the center of the Earth up a few meters.

"Loitering in the hallways a minute after the bell rang?" came a soft reply from behind the two boys. Danny and Klaus turned quickly at the break in silence to see that Whipple had walked (or maybe stealthily appeared?) behind them, a detention slip held fast between his greedy, little fingers.

"We're not in high school and we have another hour before our next class," Klaus leaked through clenched teeth, it being obvious that he received this treatment on a daily basis. Whipple merely sniffed before he slipped his detention pad behind his back and shifted his weight from the front of his feet to his heels.

"Don't expect me to go so lenient on you just because your Uncle is the principle of this facility," Whipple sneered slightly, his gaze every now and then straying from Klaus to Danny, "If you have an hour break then you should either be in your rooms or in a pre-designated lounging area."

"Yah," Klaus mumbled as he rolled his eyes and walked off for the nearest lounge.

"This was just a warning! Next time it's a detention!" Whipple yelled after them, waving the detention pad in his hand to prove that he was serious.

"We're in college!" Klaus yelled back as they both continued to the lounge.

"What an ass," Danny commented once Whipple had been lost from view.

"Yah well if you're going to be hanging out with me, get used to it. I'm like his favorite person to pick on, I'm almost positive it's because I'm his boss's nephew…"

"And he's an ass," Danny said again, just wanting to reiterated the phrase incase no one had picked up on it the first time around. Klaus sighed slightly and walked up to two large, wooden doors that had the words 'President's Lounge' written over the top.

"President's lounge?" Danny asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yah, codename for 'No one but College Students allowed'. It's a really nice place for studying, and it's so large when we talk we won't bother anyone," Klaus said as he made his way towards the back of the room. Danny followed, sacrificing his awareness for the upcoming objects in front of him for a glance at the room.

The place was dark set with deep maroon leather couches and mahogany stained wood walls. The floors were also decorated in a rich textural pattern, most of which was blurred out by the constant traffic flow in and out of the place. To the far right a large fireplace stood. Two white pillars decorated the outside vertical mouth of the fireplace while a large mantel extended outwards from on top of the two pillars, giving the entity as a whole a sort of Victorian feeling.

As Danny continued to look around, his eyes caught on an odd painting. At the angle he was presently at the light from the fixtures above was reflecting against everything in the painting except for the arms and hands. Before he could turn forward to ask Klaus about it, he unexpectedly tripped over a side table that was directly in front of him, did a very creative summersault forward and landed face up on the couch that was directly beside the table.

The students that were in the lounge, never keen on missing a moment of humiliation, looked over quickly to see Danny continuing his stare contest with the ceiling.

"Danny? Hey are you alright? There was a table there...," Klaus said as he quickly walked over to Danny and helped him up.

"Yah thanks for the warning…," Danny mumbled as he took Klaus' arm and got to his feet.

"Come on my spot is this way," Klaus said as he turned and continued forward for the approximate 3 meter distance from where Danny had practiced his New Age yoga. With a small sigh Fenton followed after and sat in a seat near Klaus, "Your spot?"

"Yah, where I always come to study and stuff," Klaus said with a shrug as he opened a folder filled with papers.

"I'm not too far behind am I?" Danny asked as he heaved a rather large sigh, "That looks like a lot…"

"Believe it or not it's not that much. I just have a professor that hates trees," Klaus replied a he started to sort the papers into two piles, the pile that he actually needed and the pile that went to help the school save on heating costs.

"So since you asked earlier… do you have a major? Or from your previous school it's not a 'transferable' thing to our kind of school…" Klaus inquired as he finished sorting his piles and turned to look at Danny. A good amount of time passed before Danny looked back at Klaus then away again.

"I never went to college…. I sort of just finished high school. Vlad wanted me to apply but I didn't… I-," Danny started but was quickly cut off by a deafening boom followed by a shockwave that spread throughout the entire campus, causing many paintings and small objects to fall to the floor. Pausing for only a second Danny jumped to his feet and shot across the room, not even bothering to open the door as he phased through it and ran for the source of the noise.

This was it, it had to be. One of the ghosts he always defeated had gotten out again and they were here for him. They were here to fight and he was ready and restless. Finally something that was familiar and old, something that he could take his frustration and anxiety out on, something that he knew. It didn't take long for him to find the source of the commotion for as he turned the corner he found himself right on the edge of a rather large sink hole, the center of which couldn't be seen since it was blocked by the still rising debris from the incident.

"Geeze you ran off fast, did you-" Klaus yelled as he ran up beside Danny, "What the hell happened here?"

Somewhere, they had to be somewhere. Danny continued to survey the site carefully, ignoring Klaus who was now looking for someone else that could explain the large hole.

Since he lived at a ghosting school, using his ghost sense proved to be absolutely useless, making his search for the cause of the hole to be a tad bit more tedious than normal.

"Hey, do you see that?" Klaus said as he pointed down into the clearing hole. Danny turned to look at where Klaus was pointing and noticed a rectangular object that seemed to be glowing a faint green. By this time kids had filtered out of their classes, much to the protest of the teachers and professors, and started circling around the hole.

"All right people, nothing to see here, get back to class," came a sturdy voice from the opposite end of the room. Mr. Mitchell soon came into sight at the edge of the hole, waving his hands in emphasis to his previous comment.

"Everyone back to class," He repeated as he continued his shooing motion. A strong, unified sigh swept over the crowd as it slowly dispersed back into the nearby classrooms. As Klaus and Danny turned to go, Mr. Mitchell spotted them and walked over quickly.

"Klaus, are you alright? How long were you two out here?" Mr. Mitchell asked as he came to a stop. The boys, following suit, looked to each other then back to Klaus' father.

"Not long, we were in the President's Lounge when we heard and rushed over. Look do you see that? What is it?" Klaus questioned as he pointed back down to the clearing area. Mr. Mitchell looked over at the dimly glowing object then back to his son.

"This is an older section of the building so I'm not sure what it is, but I'm glad you two are fine. You should probably get back to studying," he said as he gave them a warm smile then shooed them off with the same hand motion he gave the crowd beforehand. His son replied in cooperation then turned and headed back for the lounge, Danny following close behind after his own nod in agreement.

As the boys walked back down the hall towards the lounge, Mr. Mitchell watched Danny cautiously before making his way back to a different part of the building.

"Man that was so random, I wonder what happened," Klaus said as he walked over to the couch they had been at before and sat down.

"No idea," Danny sighed as he sat down as well. The volume of the lounge had increased to normal chat as everyone was now wondering and guessing what was wrong.

"Probably just an old pipe burst," Danny heard one girl say to her companions, "This place is really old you know."

"A pipe did that? You saw the radius of that thing right?" replied one of her friends.

"Oh you know, it is really old"

Danny turned away and heaved another sigh. He had been almost positive that it was the box ghost or something. But… had he been sure? Or did he wish for it to be true so hard that he made himself believe? His old life was gone, and there was no turning back.

Over the commotion in the room the bell could be heard, signifying next period.

"Well," Klaus said as he finished organizing and putting his papers back in his messenger bag, "That's our magical defense class; I think you'll like it. I definitely do since it's my favorite class."

"Huh? Oh right," Danny said as he nodded and got to his feet, "Hey how do I have the same classes as you? I mean I haven't declared a major yet or anything."

"All freshmen need to take the exact same classes, it's the only time they control what we take. But after this year, depending on what you go into, we might not have another class together," Klaus replied as he started to weed his way through the students who were making an effort to restore everything to its original spot before the shockwave.

"So does this stuff happen often? Everyone was so lax after a huge gaping hole appeared in the middle of their school," Danny asked after a few steps.

"No, you better believe they'll be talking about this for months, it's just what can we do? Run around with our heads cut off?"

"I guess not."

The boys headed out in silence for awhile before they turned a corner, immediately bringing them across a yellow taped barrier. A few meters beyond the tape the hole could be seen.

"Well of course they'd block this off. Uh, ok this way," Klaus said as he turned to his right and walked through the wall beside them. Danny paused only for a moment before following after Klaus through the wall.

After a few short-lived trips to the outside and a few classrooms that thankfully weren't yet in session, Klaus managed to steer them around the disaster area and towards their next class.

"I really think you'll like this one," Klaus commented as he placed his hand on the doorknob to room 159.

"Huh?" Danny asked, still looking behind them at the rather large sink hole. He stood there debating for a moment before he let loose his question, "Is that near our history class?"

"Uh, yah I think it is. Hey you know we were standing around there too before the explosion…"

It was true; they had been standing in almost the exact same spot before Whipple came and made a nuisance of himself.

iQuite lucky, wasn't it Daniel?/i


	9. Chapter 9

"Well whatever we weren't there when it happened were we?" Klaus commented as he turned the knob and walked inside. Danny shook his head slightly then turned and followed after Klaus.

Was this ever going to end?

Deciding to face what he had run from for almost three years, Danny now looked inward and questioned the horrible voice that always seemed to pop up at the most inopportune moments.

iYou didn't have anything to do with this did you?/i

iSo you've finally come to terms with my existence? Good job, I was starting to think you hated me. You can imagine how sad I was,/i the voice replied smugly, Danny could almost see him grinning.

iThat DIDN'T answer my question. Did you or didn't you?/i

iWhy don't you put that brain of yours to work, Daniel. Why would I want to kill you if I'm uin/u you? /i

At this comment Danny turned his head forward to see that Klaus had already entered the classroom. Not wanting to continue the oddly sarcastic conversation he was holding with the voice, he turned and followed Klaus inside.

The room, though Danny was pretty sure this class was a lecture, was much smaller than the history class they had come from. Measuring just a tad bit larger than a normal classroom size it nearly doubled in length from the front chalkboard to the back of the room. All the desks, instead of being in neat rows and columns, were pushed to the sides of the room, allowing for a large area in the middle to be left open.

If Danny hadn't known he was currently taking classes in the middle of a castle-like structure, he would have thought this room was ancient judging by all the scratches, niches and indents the room and furniture both displayed as if they were war-scars brandishing it's heroism and bravery.

"Hey Danny over here," Klaus called over to him while gesturing to the man standing beside him. Danny paused then walked over towards them while surveying the man carefully with his eyes. He seemed to be a normal person, relatively dark brunette with small and numerous dreadlocks that went down close to his chin and was of a dark skin complexion, but the one strange thing that caught Danny's attention was that he had a long detailed tattoo starting from above his left eyebrow that gracefully wound down the side of his face to come to a stop around his ear.

The man met Daniel's eye contact and replied with a smile and a hand.

"Hi I'm Professor Faldier, glad to see a new face in my class…," the professor stopped, waiting for Danny's name in reply.

"Fenton, Daniel Fenton but Danny is fine."

"Well welcome Danny, we'll be starting shortly. Just pick a seat; we don't have them assigned or anything. Oh and don't worry about what you've missed so far, the semester has just started and I'm sure you'll pick up what you missed in no time," professor Faldier finished with a small smile as he turned away and walked back to his desk to prepare for lecture.

"K…," Danny replied as he turned away and scanned his eyes quickly around the classroom in search of Mitchell.

"Great, sits in front, should have known," he mumbled to himself as he strolled casually over to the seat next to Klaus and sat down, "Though I guess every spot is the front row isn't it?"

"Yah it's so everyone can see the demonstrations," Klaus replied as he took out a notebook and pencil.

"Demonstrations? Wow I guess you do like this class, it gets notes and everything"

Klaus merely nodded in reply as he started to put so many details at the top of his notebook that the Declaration of Independence wouldn't even need.

"Hey Klaus!" came a higher pitched voice form across the room. The two boys looked up to see Marty Summers walking towards them while waving.

"Hey is that the kid who was hiding from someone? He's in college? I thought he was in high school…," Danny asked quickly before Marty came into hearing range.

"He looks like it doesn't he? uI/u think he never hit puberty, but you know.. Funny thing is he was hiding from ihigh school/i bullies," Klaus finished just as Marty walked up with a large grin; apparently he really liked this class too.

"Danny! You're in this class too? Man what a great surprise, I'm sure you'll love this class, you know we really like this class. I'm sorry about our last visit, I was just a little tied up," Summers said in a rushed flurry of words as he quickly grabbed the seat beside Danny and started to unload all of his things from his bag.

"Uh…," started Danny, still trying to process all of the information that had hit him at 88 miles per hour. Apparently Marty felt this was a good enough answer to his first assault and decided to continue.

"Wow so what do you think the professor is going to do today? I mean he briefly told us what was going to happen for our next lecture but hearing and seeing are two different things, am I right?"

"Yah, he said he was going to give notes then demonstrate the aladay move. Apparently we're learning it earlier than his last class," Klaus replied, a grin growing visibly larger as he finished his sentence.

"K, wait. So what exactly do we do in this class?" Danny said quickly before Marty could start up again.

"Oh you don't know? Well we-," Marty started to say before he was cut off by the sound of the bell then by the professor.

"Bom Dia class, I trust you all had a good weekend?" Professor Faldier said as he walked from his desk over to the middle of the classroom. There was a mixture of replies from the room as the students mumbled in return.

'Well I'll take that as a yes. So last time we left off with the basic ways to physically defend against a third level paralysis attack," he paused as he slid a long wooden stick from his sleeve and pointed it upward.

"Do I have any volunteers?" The professor asked with a raised eyebrow as he started to scan the now silent room with his eyes.

"No volunteers at all… Alright then. Satunnainen!" Professor Faldier called out into the air as a burst of purple light lit from the tip then began to race across the room in circles before landing on a young woman five seats down from Danny. The girl squeaked in alarm then slowly got to her feet as the Professor beckoned her over.

"Thank you Lila for volunteering. Now could you stand about six feet from me? Do you remember what to do?" he asked. The girl nodded in reply then held out both palms as if she were getting ready to catch a large object that was hurtling towards her.

"Alright, on the count of three. One, two, three. Verlam!" No sooner than Professor Faldier had shouted this word an explosion of light green mixed with blue erupted from the tip of the wooden stick and shot in a dazzling spiral that left tiny sparks in its wake towards the girl. The young woman, not hesitating for a second, shouted the counter to the ever nearing spiral of light with a shaky yet confident tone of voice.

"Metritis Verlam!"

As soon as the words left her lips the palms of her hands started to glow a bright orange mixed with red. At almost the same moment the Professor's spell hit this barrier which caused a flash of bright white light that faded away soon afterwards. Danny blinked for no longer than a second after the bright flash but as soon as he opened his eyes the light was gone and in place of it was the Professor clapping his hands and the girl breathing deep, not from the energy required to counter the spell but from the sheer nervous state she had put herself through beforehand.

"Well done Lila, you may take your seat. Now we were cut short on Friday before I could tell you but this counter spell is a basic spell that anyone can use, you don't need to be magically inclined to do so, which is why all of you should be able to do it.

These attack spells are basic and meant for what the wielder might consider an insignificant opponent, especially if they don't know what you are. If they do know then you will most likely be faced with a whole new set of spells, ones that are specifically meant for ghosts.

Those are a little more advanced to counter so I won't be showing you them until the end of the year. For now we'll just be working on the basic counter spells that you might need," the Professor finished as he finished pacing the room and made his way for his desk.

Danny quickly turned towards Klaus with a questioning look who gave a 'sorry I didn't tell you sooner' look in return.

"Magical defense class can't be taught without a wizard as the professor. So NOW do you believe I was telling you the truth yesterday?"

"Yah yah I see. So then we'll be doing stuff like this all throughout the year?" Danny asked, his interest in this school now growing.

"Yup but we take a lot of notes too, and well I hope you can draw."

"Draw, wait what?"

Klaus merely nodded towards the front of the room where the Professor was now illustrating a person who was in a battle ready position accompanied by many notes to the side. Daniel groaned slightly, he was never good at art either.

"So those are optional… right?"

"Actually," Marty squeaked in quickly, "they help a lot. Some of the moves you need to do require you to get in odd positions to defend against and with at least a stick-figure illustration you can get the basic jist of the position."

'Well it's not like you can really practice this anyway, right? Since we cant do magic or anything."

"Ah but, Mr Fenton was it? You can practice the basic stances and your force in saying words. Magic is half ruled by the tone of voice and confidence you show in them. If you feebly wheeze out a word you're as good as done for. Now can I have you read what's up on the board?" Professor Faldier asked as he wheeled his way from the board towards Danny.

"Uh," Danny mumbled as he paused and squinted towards the chalkboard, "Counter spells level three and lower start with metritis followed by the word of the spell but for level two and higher a completely new word must be used."

"Which means," the Professor asked with a raised eyebrow.

"That… you better have a really good memory," Danny replied in return, not sure how else to answer the question. The Professor merely smiled and turned away from Danny.

"That is actually correct, there will be a lot of memorizing from now on," he started before a wave of sighs hit the air, "First the basic way to detect the level of a spell so you will know how to react. Second the counter spells for each individual attack that might be used, then finally the specific ghost spell counters. All of these, though, are simple enough as they all end in tasma, the trick is to remember the beginning."

"So Danny do you have a notebook? Because you should write all of this down," Marty asked as he turned from the professor.

"No, I really didn't expect to be thrown into school so early."

"Oh well ok whatever you miss today I can give you my notes alright?"

"Thanks," Danny said with a nod as he turned back towards the teacher who was now apparently talking something about beats and their natural repellant capabilities. At this point Klaus leaned over towards Danny.

"He also kinda goes off track sometimes, another reason why I like him. He usually will just give us random bits of information, all of which are pretty cool facts but never really help us with anything, I keep thinking he should put them all in a book…"

"Yah.. Beats wonderful… that kinda reminds me of Blood Blossom"

"Oh yah you know about that? Nasty stuff isn't it?"

"Yah when you're CAUGHT in it"

"You actually went INTO a barrier of that stuff? Man that must have hurt"

"Well it's not like I knew or anything"

"Shhh!" Marty harshly rapped at them as he intently scribbled down every word that came out of the Professor's mouth sometimes repeating the words after he had written them down, "great for using on dead possums…"

Danny sighed slightly then turned back towards Klaus to see that he was now copying down notes as well. With no notebook to write down his own notes, Danny slouched back in his chair and paid close attention to Professor Faldier.

This class was different than the last. He couldn't help but pay attention to the teacher's every last word. He was funny and yet knew when to be serious. It was as if he knew exactly how to keep your attention and make the hour fly. Before long the bell rang right in the middle of another demonstration.

"Ok that looks fine but if you don't bend your knees more you might be blown off your feet, doesn't matter how well you say the counter, if your knees aren't bent you'll go flying into your next life and you're only half ready for that. Remember; try to think of catching a fridge on wheels, not a pet rock. The bell already? Alright class, we'll finish this up tomorrow, see you then."

The student that had been the guinea pig for the day slowly got to his feet while rubbing his behind and retrieved his things before joining the rest of the class on their way out.

"See wasn't that amazing?" Marty exclaimed as he too packed up his lecture belongings.

"Yah wow that guy had my attention the entire time," Danny stated as he swung his backpack over his shoulder and headed for the door with Marty and Klaus.

"Danny," Professor Faldier called out as he walked from the middle of the room over towards the exiting boys. Danny stopped mid-step then gracefully turned around on his heels to face the professor.

"This was your first day so I gave you a break but read over Mr. Summer's and Mitchell's notes tonight because I always call on people at random. Now that you've been in my class for at least one day you're at risk of being called on as well."

Danny just nodded to the word of warning. The Professor nodded in turn and walked back to his desk, allowing the three to continue their journey towards freedom.

"He probably won't call on you for anything big, and I'm sure you won't be called tomorrow, he just probably wants you to know the material for next class before you get too far behind," Marty said with a shrug as he walked out the door then down a hallway.

"Yah, but I don't think I'll mind skimming the notes. What class do we have next?"

"Lunch, which I personally think we should be graded on, I'd ace it," Klaus stated as he turned a corner that immediately opened up to a much larger area.

The room, though it was enclosed, seemed to reach towards the sky and spanned at least a football field from entrance to entrance. About every four paces along all the walls large windows sat, their heights almost reaching the ceiling itself. This allowed for the room to be lit to its fullest without the need of lights on the ceiling.

Danny looked around in awe at the castly large room before turning towards Klaus.

"This is your lunch room?"

"Well yah and entertainment room, largest lounge, coffee house and college bookstore."

"Bookstore?"

"Yah for yoru books? See the other end of the hall, that oens up to the school grounds and is open for the public."

"And kids don't try to sneak out?"

"You bet they try but you either have to have a college ID or book card to phase out of here."

"Oh," Marty interrupted, "I forgot I need to still pick up a book for my next class. I'll meet up with you guys after."

With that Marty made his way over towards the other end of the room where the coffee house and bookstore was. Danny watched in that direction for a few seconds before Klaus made a sharp turn to the left then stopped behind a line.

"It's lunch time for the high schoolers as well so it's always going to be crowded, but don't worry, we only have this lunch Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Tuesday and Thursday we don't get out until two."

"Two?"

"Yah we'll have two classes immediately after our Magical Defenses class but then we'll be done for the day."

After lunch Danny and Klaus had two more classes, the first of which Marty also had. The first class after lunch was interesting enough but had no demonstrations, all information; The proper analytical look into the different classifications of ghosts. The last class of the day was a normal class, cooking.

"Yah supposedly parents are starting to worry about their kids after they graduate thinking that our school was purely based on job training and information so they set up a survival class for freshmen this year," Klaus had replied after seeing Danny's confused look, "I personally like it , we make the best stuff."

"When I'm on my own it will be pasta morning noon and night, nothing more."

"Why are you Italian?"

"No it's just the easiest thing to make."

Their freedom came with the ring of a bell that echoed throughout the halls, letting out some fortunate souls but keeping others imprisoned for one more class. Danny carefully swung his pack over his shoulder as he waited for Klaus to clean the rest of the flour from his hands and face.

"Honestly every bad I seem to open loves to just explode in my face," he grumbled as he towel dried off and picked up his bag as well. The two boys exited the room then headed back for the dorms. Immediately after turning down into the main hallway a golden light poured down through the wall windows and washed over them, covering them in the fine dust of the evening.

"Just after three and the sun is going down already?" Danny commented as he ut a hand to his forehead to shade his eyes then looked on towards the endless hills that complimented the sun.

"Yah, it's close to winter and actually in this area the sun sets two hours before it would normally."

"What?"

"The sun sets two hours earlier here."

"Yah I heard that, but why?"

"Oh well I'm not really sure why, it's just always been like that. Never covered it in my High School Astronomy class either so I guess it was never really important."

"Huh…"

They had reached the entrance to the dorms before they stopped then went in one at a time (the entrance was only large enough for one).

"So do we have set dinners or something?" Danny asked as Klaus pulled out his key and opened their door.

"Nah but its from 4:45 to 7:30 so we have plenty of time to get there."

Danny sat down on his bed then laid back to start counting dots on the ceiling.

"You don't need to stay in these clothes if you don't want to."

"Huh?" Danny mumbled as he looked from the ceiling towards Klaus to see him taking off his shirt before turning back towards his dot counting.

"K, I guess I'll change after you."

"You don't mind do you? I mean I'm not gay or anything but I figured we're both guys…"

"No it's fine, I've been in a locker room before."

"I can assure you my clothes smell a lot better than a locker room."

With that Danny got to his feet with a chuckle and walked over to the room window. It was rather large, tall enough to be able to accommodate most of a person when standing on the ledge. Carefully he placed both elbows to rest on the side ledge of the window then let his shoulders sag with a sigh.

The view they had was not that bad, considering they were actually on the third floor. The school he stood in now was actually on top of the largest of a series of hills that surrounded the area. To Danny from the window it looked like a sea of golden green, flowing gently from trough to crest as it slowly thinned out and the rippling ceased to calmer waters. It was at the end of these hills a city came to his vision, the city he had seen the day before.

iSo a city that hates ghosts, I guess it's like my hometown… But I wonder from where they're at if they get a clear shot of us everyday. I guess it's something like living in the shadow of a hatred you know you'll never be rid of…/i

iOh Daniel how sweet, are you referring to me?/i

Danny quickly pushed away from the window and looked over to see Klaus had already changed and was going through his backpack. He looked up at Danny's sudden movements then looked out the window as well.

"Kinda neat huh? I mean the view and all."

"Yah, it is."

iYes, it's /iveryi neat Daniel. Though best not to tell him what you were looking at hm? Wouldn't want you two getting into trouble now do we?/i

"Hey Klaus," Danny interjected quickly, causing Klaus to look up from his backpack again, "That city…"

"Yah, what about it?"

"Ever been to it before?"

"No, no ones allowed down there…"

"So you're saying that no one ever goes there," Danny said with a small eye roll.

"Well, no we're not SUPPOSED to go but idiots go there anyway… Why? It's sorta like saying you're not allowed to drink 'til you're 21 but people start drinking before or as soon as they hit College," Klaus said with a shrug as he continued digging through his bag, "At dinner you can get some notebooks and I'll let you copy down my notes, they sell them in the bookstore."

"Well, how about we go there," Danny said with a small shrug, "It couldn't hurt."

"What the bookstore? Yah we'll need to if you don't want to copy down your notes on air."

"No I meant the town."

"Yah it couldn't hurt… until we're found out and they have about ten holes in us! I'm not going down there, you couldn't get me DRUNK enough to go down there."

"Come on, it won't be for that long, I just want to check out the area. We'll be back before dinner."

"No I'm not going," Klaus said as he sat back down on his bed and started to write on his notebook, as if this signaled the end of the conversation.

Danny sighed slightly then went to his closet and pulled out his usual day décor. If it was a place that hated ghosts then there had to be shops or places there that got rid of them right? And what better way to get rid of something you didn't want than by using what's built to get rid of that something.

After slipping into his jeans and t-shirt, Danny turned slowly towards Klaus then headed for the door.

"Alright, but I'm going," he said with a shrug as he opened the door with conviction, "Don't worry I have my keys with me."

At this Klaus shot up from his bed and walked towards the door.

"Danny what are you insane? Why would you want to go there anyway?" Klaus asked as he pushed the door firmly closed with his right hand.

"Told you, I want to see the area."

"You're really stubborn aren't you…"

"Like you wouldn't believe."

Klaus looked away from him for a moment as he bit his tongue and tapped his middle finger on the door in debate. Finally he gave a long sigh then brought both hands in the air as if there was nothing he could do.

"Fine whatever, if you really want to go I'll go with you BUT. We're NOT flying there, we're NOT teleporting there, we're NOT phasing through hills to get to there, we're NOT going to be invisible while walking there have I covered all the bases? No ghost business while we're there, their city is heavily guarded with sensors to alert the town of anything like that. Understand?"

"Yes mother," Danny said with a small smile as he slipped through the now open door and walked down the stairs for the exit.

"How do I get myself into this stuff?" Klaus sighed as he turned off the light, walked out the door then locked it behind him before following after Danny who was now already half way through the door. Seeing Danny's quick progress towards freedom, Klaus picked up his pace and followed through the exit.

"Come on," he said as he slipped through the wall to the side of them and started walking through the tall flow of grass that went billowing down the smooth curve of the hill they resided on.

The sun was now turning everything in its narrow path to a golden ash as the boys trudged along the long and winding paths of the hills that followed after. Every so often Danny would look back at the school to see if it was still visible, to which every time he still found himself face to face with the large castle-like building.

"What, want to go back?" Klaus said with a smirk, misunderstanding Danny's curiosity for regret on leaving the building, "I Thought this was your idea…"

"No I just want to know if they actually see that place from the city or if it's hidden or something," Danny said then shrugged as he turned back towards their path. They were nearing the foot of the village now and what once looked like a small squat city soon grew three dimensional as large buildings came up from the ground and started to cast a shadow over the area they were now walking on.

The city itself wasn't very modern. Most of the buildings in it didn't reach past three stories and were decorated in the German/Dutch style. A few odd and out of place buildings stood in brick, though these too seemed to look a little old-school in their make and feel. Other than the outdated structures, though, the place seemed like a normal town that had normal people that were carrying out normal activities.

"Nothing seems strange about it," Danny started to say before he was pulled to the side behind one of the last houses in town.

"We need to swing around to the side where the main road comes into town or they'll know where we came from," Klaus said in hushed tones before he started to casually walk around the outer bounds of the town. Danny followed close behind while still turning his head in every direction.

They were only yards away from their destination when they heard a 'Hey!' from behind them. Wheeling quickly on their heels they turned towards the noise to find a woman with a bag in one hand and her hip in the other.

"What do you kids think you're doing out here just after dark? Think you're going to be sneaking off somewhere?" The woman asked with a straight, determined face.

"I- what?" Danny started before Klaus quickly intervened.

"We're in college, we had to do a project for one of our classes."

"A project this late at night outside of the city? If you're in college then you two should know better, it's not safe outside of town at night. Are you guys transfers or something?"

To this both nodded quickly.

"I guess it can wait, 'til tomorrow," Klaus said slowly while looking over to Danny who nodded again.

"Freshmen," the woman finished as she herself walked passed them and for the road they were walking towards.

"Uh… k…," Danny said as he looked towards Klaus who was already entering the town from where they were. He quickly followed after as Klaus stepped foot onto a street and looked around before stopping.

"What? Huh…," Danny mumbled as he too looked around at the area they were now in. The road they were standing beside was lit by streetlamps and had cars running down it's lengths as if it were day. People as well crowded the sidewalks going to or coming from their destinations, chatting as they passed the two staring boys. All of the people they saw were young, no older than 25 but no younger than 18.

The building across the street from where they were at rose taller than the three stories they had seen from the back end of town and was lit in almost every window.

"Hey, I wonder…," Klaus said as he started walking down the street while still staring at the large structure before them. Danny followed after, careful to sidestep the people who were walking past them.

"Yah, hey look," Klaus said with confirmation as he pointed towards the front of the building. Danny stopped quickly then looked to where Klaus was pointing to see a long stretching row of stairs that led from ground level to about five feet upwards to the entrance of the building. The stairs seemed to arch in a semi circle around a large statue that stood in the middle of the empty ground space.

The statue was of a young woman with long hair that cascaded from her shoulders down towards her sides who firmly held a book in her right hand; it seemed as if she was reading intently, as if she was hanging on every last word. A sign at the bottom of the statue proudly read 'Livingston University est. 1752'.

"We're in a college area," Klaus finished as he looked around at all the shops and bars that surrounded the main university building.

"Well that explains why the alarms didn't go off when that woman saw us," Danny concluded as he too started to look around, "It's not that bad of a place, actually I'd say it outdoes-"

"Danny!?" interrupted a voice from the surrounding crowd. Danny looked around quickly before his eyes trained upon a young black woman headed towards them.

"Danny is that you?" she finished as she walked up in front of them then stopped, "It is! I haven't seen you in forever!" she exclaimed as she pulled Danny into a quick hug.

"Va-Valerie?" Danny was only able to squeak out before the onslaught of affection. Klaus, being thoroughly confused, continued to stand there while blinking, it was the only thing he could do.

"I knew you would be coming to this school but when I didn't see you at first, but how have you been? You left so quick after… I wasn't sure if you were alright…," Valerie finished with a frown.

"I… fine I… I went to stay with a relative in Wisconsin…," Danny replied in shock, still not being able to believe that Valerie was here of all places, "I mean you thought I was going here? I mean of course I go here but.."

"Yah, the best ghost hunting school in the nation! Why would you go anywhere else? Since your parents were the best ghost hunters in Amity Park… and with what happened to you… but come on. Why don't you guys join me and my friends? We were just going to get something to eat," Valerie finished as she took a firm hold on Danny's hand and started dragging him through the crowd towards one of a few tables set up outside of a café that had two other girls sitting at it.

Klaus, upon hearing this interesting development of information, quickly followed after with a small frown.


	10. Chapter 10

"Guys, this is Danny Fenton, Danny this is Laura Fingle and Bernice Johnson," Valerie Gray introduced between the company as she sat down in the empty chair beside Bernice.

"Fenton? As in the ghost hunting family Fenton? They're like famous here!" Laura asked as she looked Danny up and down. Before Danny could respond Valerie cut him off to explain the rest.

"Yah and I knew he was going to be coming here, I mean doesn't it make sense?"

"So one of the Famous Fentons. I heard about your loss, sorry but that's what happens in the business, glad to see that you at least have enough sense to continue with your parents work," Bernice interjected.

Danny paused before he was able to process the entire conversation.

"Wait my parents went to college in Wisconsin, that's nowhere near here."

"Yah they're so famous because both of them rejected an invitation to this school and went to Wisconsin to try and help start the ghost hunting program there. No one thought they could do it at a normal University but they did iand/i it was successful! The stuff your mom invented was also cutting edge, she was always setting the curve for the graduates over here," Laura finished with a shrug.

"That Fenton huh?" Klaus asked as he now looked upon Danny as if he was just dragged in by the neighborhood alley cat.

"Yah you go here too right? You came here and didn't know about his family at all?"

"No I just figured it was a coincidence, I'm sure it's a common name."

Danny frowned then looked back at Klaus, trying to convey the 'I'll explain later' look before Valerie clasped her hand around his wrist and pulled him into the last empty seat.

"Well don't just stand there!" she exclaimed as she looked from Danny up to Klaus.

"No don't mind me, I'll get my own chair," Klaus said with a grumble as he turned and stole a seat from a nearby table that only had two occupants.

"So Danny what dorm are you staying in? I'm in Main Street Residency; it's the closest to all my classes. Man did I have a hard time convincing my dad to let me come here! You know how he was when I kept trying to get that ghost boy, but after awhile he allowed me to go, especially after Amity Park started to become more haunted… it was just after you left, not that it was your fault, it's just a good thing that you got out of there."

"Hey Valerie," Bernice interrupted, "Didn't you two go out for awhile? That's what you said."

At this both Danny and Valerie went red.

"Well we- we didn't really, I mean we uh," Danny choked out slowly before turning to look at Klaus who had come back with a chair and sat down away from Danny.

"You know how things go in high school, you don't ireally/i know you're going out and it was just a few dates…," Valerie finished for Danny as she looked over to see his reaction as well.

"Don't be shy, Valerie said you guys went out," Bernice said with a wide smirk towards Danny who just blushed and looked away again.

"Bernice, girl, you're playing on words again," Valerie snapped back as she turned towards Bernice to give her a warning look.

"So Danny tell us more about what it was like to be apart of the Fenton household," Klaus started as he slouched back in his seat and hooked his left arm over the back of the chair. Valerie, being glad that the subject had changed, turned from Bernice over to Klaus with a smile.

"Yah Danny, your parents always had the coolest stuff I'm sure you got to be one of the first to use them."

"Well I guess, but it wasn't that cool… And It's not like I got to use the stuff since I never… really… needed the stuff or anything," Danny said slowly with a small glare in Klaus' direction.

"Oh don't be so modest, I'm sure you used their 'devises' all the time," Klaus replied, glaring in return.

"No I really didn't."

"So what kind of stuff did they make? I'm sure it was fun to use… Maybe a ghost extractor or an ecto-taser, I'm sure those were helpful."

"You know I saw you a few times at school with the Fenton thermos, it was like the ghost-buster's box thing only more convenient to carry around, I'm sure you could fit a lot of ghosts in there," Valerie cut in as she looked to Danny with a smile. He merely nodded in reply though managed to keep eye contact with Klaus.

After a long pause in the conversation Laura decided to change the subject, having been the only one who actually noticed that the tension between Danny and Klaus was thick enough to cut with a chainsaw.

"So how do you two know each other?" Laura said with a smile as she looked back and forth between the two.

"We're roommates," Klaus replied without looking away from Danny

"Oh so you guys hang out together? That's cool. My roommate and I don't get along very well, she always comes in at 5 in the morning drunk as hell then crashes on her bed in whatever she was wearing, vomit and all. You know Bernice you said that your-"

Laura continued to talk as both Bernice and Valerie joined in, leaving the boys to their own for the time being.

"So, You're ithat/i type of Fenton," Klaus asked Danny in hushed tones.

"Listen Klaus, it's not what you think it is," Danny replied, now having a look of worry painted across his face.

"Ok then how is it? I'm really curious to know."

"Klaus not here and not now?"

"So is that why you wanted to come here?"

"Klaus-"

"What? What could you honestly have to say."

"I'd HAVE something to say if you'd let me SAY it!" Danny exclaimed right as the three girl's conversation came to a lull.

"What do you have to say?" Valerie asked, now turning her attention towards Danny.

"That I don't have enough money to get something here…"

"Oh that's ok I have enough, you can borrow some money from me," Valerie stated as she started to dig through her purse. At this Klaus stood from the table and pushed in his chair.

"It was lovely, ladies, but I have a lot of homework that I should get to if you wouldn't mind."

"See you later," Laura said with a smile then turned to look over at Danny.

"Yah bye," Bernice finished as she too turned to look at Danny.

"Me too, I really should leave," Danny said as he got to his feet, "Busy day tomorrow, you know how those go."

"Oh Danny you really don't have to on my account. Why don't you catch up on old times," Klaus said as he started to back up form the table.

"Yah Danny I'm sure you have enough time for at least one cup of coffee, you can't have THAT much work," Valerie said as she pulled a five dollar bill from her purse. Danny paused before pushing in his chair.

"Sorry, your cell still the same?" He asked as he pulled his phone from his pocket. Valerie nodded before he slipped it back in then started after Klaus who was already well on his way towards the next block crowded with college students.

"I'll call you when I have enough time to hang out," Danny finished with a wave before disappearing into the flow of people.

"Well he was cute," Laura said as she lay her chin delicately down on her palm, "Think anything will happen between you and him again?"

"Who knows," Valerie replied as she watched after Danny. She had decided not to go out with him in high school since she had been busy with ghost hunting and hadn't wanted him to get hurt because of her. But since they were both at the same school, a GHOST hunting school what would it hurt? She did still like him.

Bernice just smiled then looked from Valerie towards where Danny had exited.

"Who knows, huh? He doesn't call in three days then you call him."

"Mmhm."

As Danny came to the corner he looked around in search of Klaus. Why were there so many people out this late at night? He turned his head towards the left to see a distancing figure with curly hair. Recognizing this to be Klaus, Danny quickly headed off in his direction. After a block or so the ground began to slop upward, signaling the end of the city. Klaus, being a few meters in front of Danny, swiftly turned right and out of sight behind a building.

"Klaus!" Danny shouted as he picked up his pace and rounded the corner as well, "God it's like I've committed murder!"

At this Klaus stopped then turned back to look at Danny, waiting the couple of moments it took for Danny to catch up before walking again.

"You might as well have, coming to our school with your family," Klaus said as he looked away towards the town.

"Come on, you weren't supposed to hear that. Listen I was-"

"Don't tell me you were going to tell me, make this moment more cliché why don't you."

"I wasn't, I wasn't going to tell anyone if I could have helped it. Did you know that Vlad Masters was at the same University working on the same project with my Mom and Dad?"

"Right him too. But we're not talking about him."

"Listen, so it's obvious that I'm not a natural half-ghost huh?"

"Yah, especially if I had to explain it to you. So what does that make you an experiment of your parents? Half kill their child?"

"No, it was an accident. I was checking out one of their… inventions that wasn't working and I did something I wasn't supposed to and here I am. They never knew."

Klaus looked over towards Danny then straight ahead. They trudged on in silence as the moon began to rise in the sky causing the path that lead back to Todstark to become illuminated in blue.

Danny looked over to Klaus as they conquered their second hill to see the young half-ghost staring down at the ground as if he were concentrating really hard. He looked away then back at the distancing city which now was a distinct obscure circle of light concentrated towards the front center near the only road that lead into the city. Looking back at Klaus then forward he began to wonder if he was going to get kicked out of Todstark for this new development.

Danny almost stopped as this new thought hit his mind. Would Klaus be so mad as to go that far? Could he get kicked out for something like that? It's not like he could help genetics. The silence started to become unbearable as this new idea churned in his mind, causing him to at first not hear Klaus' question.

"Danny?" Klaus asked again as he stopped and looked at him.

"Huh? Oh sorry what?" Danny replied as he stopped as well and looked back at Klaus. He could tell that Klaus had been thinking around the same thing as well judging by the worried look on his face.

"You didn't… I mean your family were ghost hunters… did you ever…,"

"Yah… I did hunt ghosts when I lived in my home town… But I never hurt them. I only captured and sent back the ghosts that were disturbing the peace in our town… We had this thing called a ghost portal at our house and although my parents were very smart, they were also pretty dumb and somehow a lot of bad ghosts got through. Since I didn't want them to worry about the problem I fought with and put them back myself. Like keeping the peace…" Danny finished as he scanned Klaus' expression. Though he had only known him for such a short amount of time, he already didn't want to tread on shaky ground for fear of loosing a new friend; it had been awhile since his last.

A moment of silence absorbed the air as Klaus turned forward with an unreadable expression. They were nearing the second to last hill before they would hit school grounds again. What time was it? How long had it been since they set off? Deciding the silence that had now elapsed into minutes was due a disturbance, Danny turned towards his watch.

"So wow we were only under two hours… 5:45 should we head for dinner?"

Klaus continued walking in silence, just staring up at the growing shadow of the school.

"Uhm, the food seems good here, course I heard that all college food stinks. Will that hit me now or la-"

"It's fine," interjected Klaus, a distanced look gleaming over his eyes.

"Er… The food's fine?" blinked Danny; clearly he was missing something about the food.

"No… Fine what you did, or do? Doesn't matter… not every ghost will be friendly, just like not every human is bad."

Silence hit the air as the two guys looked towards each other then away. They had come up to the outside entrance to the large lounge/cafeteria/book store before Danny turned towards Klaus.

"Thanks."

They entered under the silent but mutual agreement that you can't help where you've come from. Upon entry they found themselves in the bookstore, the bookshelves stretching up the two stories that the ceiling was high. They continued on in silence before Klaus made a sharp turn to his left where a row of school supplies sat.

"Remember you need stuff, I can also tell you the books you'll need," Klaus said as he started to go through the folders.

"Er thanks but I have no money on me… In fact I have no idea where my money is..," Danny finished with a frown as he pulled out his wallet and stared sadly at its empty remains.

"Doesn't matter, you have a student account which your money is put into for the year then deducted from whenever you buy something here, that's how you get your food."

"Huh…," Danny finished as he started to go through the notebooks and folders. It had just occurred to Danny that he had come to this school fully unprepared. He had just woken up some days ago to find that Vlad was dead and that he was supposed to attend some school until graduation.

iBut this school is probably the best place for me to be at the moment… I mean it's a ghosting school so I should be fine right?/i He thought to himself as he mindlessly picked up the correct amount of folders and notebooks that he would need.

"The college books are over here," Klaus called out to Danny as he turned and walked up to one bookshelf. Scanning the merchandise with his eyes that he had just picked up, Danny turned and walked over to where Klaus was now hovering about 12 feet in the air.

"Here, this is for cooking class," Klaus said before dropping the book near the area Danny was now in. Having looked up a second before the book started falling; Danny was prepared and held out a hand, making the book hover about 4 ft in the air.

"Geeze," Danny was only able to let out before a furious looking woman came walking up to them.

"RESPECT for the books please," At this abrupt change in volume the book Danny was keeping in the air fell to the ground. The woman held out a hand as it flew from its resting place on the ground to her hand, "You may be BUYING them but if you want to hand them off to someone else then you HAND it to them, not THROW it down to them."

"Sorry I-," started Klaus before the woman interrupted again.

"No, come down now. What books do you need, I'll get them for you," the woman breathed dangerously as she followed Klaus' decent towards the ground. Danny was expecting fire to erupt from her mouth at any moment while Klaus began to quietly list out the number of books for their classes. After he was finished the woman nodded curtly then held up her free hand as the books flew out from their respective places all along the book shelves and came to hover in front of her.

"Now take your books. Next time you need any books you can come to the information desk where we will assist you," she finished as she shoved the cooking book into Klaus' open arms. Danny scooped up the floating books quickly before the woman turned and walked back to her seat under a large sign that read 'Customer Service, we'll gladly help!'.

"Yikes," Danny whispered to Klaus as he walked over to checkout. Deciding that to talk now would be too soon, Danny bought his books then walked off towards the cafeteria. After they had put a good distance between them and the information woman, they turned towards each other then away quickly.

"Geeze it's not like you were launching it at me or anything," Danny said as he shifted all the bags onto one hand so he could pick up a tray.

"Nah I shouldn't have done that but wow, really, she acted like I was using her first born for bating practice," Klaus snorted as he too picked up a tray.

They took their seats in silence and began to eat, the events of the day still circulating in full through their heads. While Klaus' head had momentarily filed the Fenton family to the back of his head and was now filed with the lessons they had done for the day, Danny continued to linger on the fact that the girl he had once liked was no more than a mile or more away from him.

iEventually she's going to figure out that I don't go to that school, I mean it wasn't that big, she'd know when she didn't see me.

What would she think if she knew about you? Probably hate you even more than she does right now…/i a familiar yet hated voice piped up as Danny shifted slightly in his seat. He wasn't going to hear it, just ignore him, the best course of action to use in this situation.

i You know you can't ignore me forever, it's like trying to get rid of a nasty image that you don't want to see but you see anyway, /i The voice said in contradiction.

Danny looked up to see that their table had now been joined by Marty Summers and that he was now the object of attention.

"What?" Danny asked as he looked back down to his food and poked his mashed potatoes with his fork.

"Were you just- ow hey!" Marty finished abruptly as he rubbed his side gingerly.

"Nothing, uhm so Marty did you finish your essay for GC 105 yet? I named out all the differences between a Ghoul and a Spector, but it's just there. I'm only done with about a page…," Klaus finished as he turned from Danny towards Marty.

"Well you're farther than me, I haven't really started on it yet but I-" Marty started but was interrupted by Danny.

"Essay?"

"Yah for GC, Ghost Classification, but you probably won't have to do it since it was assigned before you came, though it is supposed to be an important grade… Maybe you should talk to Professor Stowski?"

Danny nodded in reply then looked down at the pile of books he had shoved in bags to his side. There looked to be a lot of work in his future but for the first time he found himself not minding so much, the work seemed like something he'd enjoy. It wasn't like he was trying to find unknown angles or was writing an essay about a book he never read; he was doing work on something he actually found interesting.

At this he started to wonder that if his parents were still alive if he would have gone into his their line of work. Jazz always seemed so against it but she had actually started to come around to the area of study before she had…

But there was really no point dwelling on what if's. He hadn't saved the ones he really and truly cared for. With this idea lingering in his mind like a bad taste to the mouth, Danny finished his food within minutes then stood with his tray. Klaus and Marty were pulled from their conversations as they watched him get up then walk for the nearest trash bin.

"Is he ok?" Marty asked while watching Danny throw away his napkin then put his tray in a bin of soapy water.

"He, yah seems fine, he just got here though, remember? Needs time to adjust I guess," Klaus said quickly before Danny walked back over to the table and started to gather his things.

"I think I remember my way back, I'll be in the room," Danny said as he stood and looked from Marty to Klaus.

"K, if you need my notes to copy they'll be on my desk," Klaus said as Danny nodded in reply then turned and walked off.

"Ok, so you know they're showing Heroes on the Lobby TV every Monday when it's on, want to watch it before you start on work?"

"What time is it on?" Klaus asked as he turned his attention from the door over to Marty.

Marty consulted his watch before replying. "In about an hour."

"Yah maybe, though I told myself I would finish that essay tonight. I'll show up in the Lobby if I decide to watch," Klaus said as he too stood then walked over to the trash bin then put his dishes away.

Danny found his way back to the dorms without much difficulty then entered into the Lobby. Around this time students were getting back from dinner and were either hanging out or starting on work. Passing them by quickly, Danny made his way up two flights of stairs then walked for his room. Maybe some work would get his mind off the day? Surely copying down notes would help.

He opened the door slowly then put the bags on his bed before he walked over to Klaus' desk and began to rummage through his notebooks before he was able to find the one he was looking for.

Danny turned to leave before something caught his eye. Turning quickly towards the door to make sure no one was there; Danny turned back then picked up a small silver bear holding a heart. He rolled it gently in his hand before he noticed the small engraving on the heart 'I will always be with you'. He paused for a moment to wonder what or who it meant before he heard the click of the door behind him. Quickly storing the figure back down on the desk he disappeared then reappeared near his desk on the other side of the room before Klaus entered.

"Hey," Klaus said with a nod before he walked over to his desk then sat down, "What notebook are you borrowing first?"

"Oh," Danny replied before he looked at the notebook in his hand, "Magical Defense, the Professor seemed like he really meant to call on me next time and anyway it seems like a fun class."

Klaus nodded then shuffled through his notebooks until he came to his GC one then flipped it open and opened his laptop.

"Well I'm going to finish up my essay for GC, if you need help with anything-"

"I'll make sure to ask, thanks," Danny finished for him as he sat down at his empty desk then started to unload all the materials he had bought, the silver object pushed from his mind as he began to copy down the notes that he would need for the following day.


End file.
